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LI  BR  AR  Y 

OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA 

GIRT    OK 

Received ^^^^^rr-T^SSi 

Accessions  No._^.__^^Mr^  Shelf  No~\ 


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I 


jVLanual   Training 


IN  Education 


BY 


.<2.. 


'^--C? 


JAMKS    VlIvA    BlvAKK 


In  the  application  of  tJiy  principles  thou  must  be  like  the 

pancratiast^   not  like  the  gladiator;  for  Hie  gladiator 

lets  fall  the  sword  ichich  he  uses,  and  is  killed;  but  tJie 

other  always  has  his  hand,  and  needs  to  do  nothing  else 

than  use  it. 

Marcus  Aurelius. 


^^   OP  THE 

UNIVERSIT 


^im.^^ 


CHICAGO 
CHARLES  H.  KERR  &  COMPANY 

1886 


L.C  \Q&\ 


Copyright  by 
JAMES  VILA  BLAKE 

1886 


-> 


Manual  Training  in  Education. 


CONTENTS 


Page 


Preface,  by  Prof,  C.  M.  Woodward,  Director  of  the 

Manual  Training  School  of  St.  Louis,       -  -  v 

ARGUMENT. 

General  education,         .            ...            -  1 

Special  education,                ....  5 
That  both  are  needf uf^  that  one  must  not  interfere 
with  the  other;  and  that  this  leads  to  manual 

training  in  education,          ....  7 

That  this  is  specially  needful  to  the  handworker,  11 

That  the  handworker  needs  it  economically,               -  13 

That  the  handworker  needs  it  socially,     -  15 

That  handworking  is  of  great  dignity,              -            -  17 
That  manual  training  in  education  is  salutary  for 
personal  character: — 

In  morals,             -            -            -            -            -  27 

In  mind,         ...  31 
In  body,    -            •            ...            -            -41 


iv  ARGUMENT 

That  manual  training  in  education  is  very  beneficial 
to  tlie  community: — 

For  tlie  rich,         -            ....  43 

Fol  the  poor,              ....  45 

For  girls,               -            -            -            -            -  47 

In  production,            -            -            -            -  49 

In  invention,         -            -            -            -            -  55 

Regarding  immigration,        ...  57 

Regarding  the  apprenticeship-problem,             -  61 

Present  condition  of  the  subject: — 

Facts  as  to  the  need  of  manual  training  in  ed- 
ucation,     .            .            -            .            -  65 
Beginnings ;  present  schools,       -            -  69 
Manual  training  in  public  schools,             -  81 


PREFACE. 


The  educational  forces  are  changing  front.  One 
after  another,  the  division  commanders  are  discover- 
ing that  the  most  direct  and  practicable  route  to  the 
citadel  of  strong,  independent  manhood  and  to  the 
high  ground  of  good  citizenship  lies  through  the  ter- 
ritories of  modern  life,  modern  science,  modern  ac- 
tivities and  modern  thought.  The  old  route  in- 
volved a  flank  movement  and  a  long  detour  into  the 
territory  of  the  ancients,  to  the  heights  of  classic 
culture,  from  which,  as  a  base,  the  whole  modem 
country  was  to  be  attacked.  Educational  critics  for 
many  generations  have  agreed  in  the  opinion  that 
the  old  plan  of  campaign  was  the  only  one  that  was 
safe  and  sure.  The  undoubted  success  of  many  such 
movements  in  the  past  gave  color  to  such  views,  and 
every  suggestion  of  a  better  and  more  direct  road  » 
was  met  by  the  fact  that  nearly  every  successful 
general  in  history  had  marched  by  the  old  path.  To 
be  sure  this  was  not  strange,  inasmuch  as  no 
fairly  equipped  forces  had  ever  attempted  the  direct 


vi  PREFACE 

road.     Nevertheless,  the  feeling  in  favor  of  a  change 
has  been  gaining  ground. 

On  the  onehandithas  been  urged  that  the  ancient 
road  lay  through  a  dreary  country,  abounding  in 
books  and  preserved  symbols  to  be  sure,  but  dry  and 
sadly  deficient  in  living  things  and  opportunities  for 
showing  one's  parts.  It  is  said  that  a  great  majority 
of  the  troops  on  that  long  journey  drop  out  of  the 
ranks  and  straggle  into  the  modern  country  in  a 
very  sorry  condition,  having  never  seen  the  heights 
of  classic  culture,  or  only  in  the  dim  distance.  On 
the  other  hand,  those  who  in  defiance  of  all  the  tra- 
ditions have  dared  to  make  the  direct  assault  with 
such  irregulars  as  could  be  got  together,  have  re- 
ported the  discovery  of  practicable  routes,  a  most 
genial  climate,  an  abundant  supply  of  fresh  food, 
and  excellent  opportunities  for  both  deep  strategy 
and  practice  at  arms.  Moreover,  it  is  claimed  by 
those  who  know  something  of  both  roads  (and 
hence  are  qualified  to  speak  on  the  subject)  that  the 
new  road  gives  the  best  promise  of  gaining  the  high 
ground  of  independence  and  citizenship;  and  that 
from  these  points  the  capture  of  the  heights  of  fine 
arts  and  culture  will  be  more  certain  than  ever. 
Hence  the  pulling  down  of  old  walls  and  the  gradual 
change  of  front. 


PREFACE  vii 

This  military  figure  could  be  pushed  much  farther. 
I  could  have  compared  ancient  and  modern  methods 
of  warfare,  their  arms,  their  armors,  their  means  of 
transportation,  their  camp  equipage,  and  followers, 
and  the  objects  of  conquest, — but  I  prefer  to  let  the 
reader  carry  out  the  figure  for  himself. 

The  tendency  of  thoughtful  and  observant  people 
is  well  shown  in  this  modest  little  volume  of  Mr. 
Blake's.  He  has  here  given  the  result  of  his  own 
vigorous  thinking  on  what  he  has  observed  in  him- 
self and  in  others.  We  were  students  together  at 
Harvard,  and  through  widely  different  personal  ex- 
periences we  have  reached  the  common  ground  of 
a  belief  in  the  universal  value  of  manual  training  as 
an  element  in  a  truly  liberal  education. 

It  will  be  seen  that  Mr.  Blake  takes  high  ground. 
He  has  no  narrow  motive,  no  mean  estimate  of  the 
value  of  objective  training.  He  knows  the  stimulat- 
ing effect  of  seeing  for  one's  self;  he  has  felt  the  force 
of  things  as  compared  with  descriptions  of  things ; 
and  he  has  tested  the  value  of  primitive  judgment. 

Mr.  Blake  does  not  agree,  nor  do  I,  with  the 
school  superintendent  who  claims  that  the  sole^'ob- 
ject  of  school  education  is  intellectual  culture;  that 
"to  superadd  a  thorough  preparation  for  the  busi- 


viii  PREFACE 

ness  of  life,  is  to  cripple  tlie  school  in  its  appropri- 
ate sphere."'* 

As  to  the  meaning  of  a  manual  training  school  it 
is  perhaps  fitting  for  me  to  speak.  I  first  suggested 
the  name  in  1879,  when  the  St.  Louis  school  was 
organized,  having  already  had  six  years  experience 
with  tool  instruction  in  the  higher  department  of 
our  polytechnic  school.  Our  course  of  study  and 
daily  programme  remain  substantially  as  adopted 
in  1879. 

I  followed  no  model  either  in  America  or  in 
Europe.  I  profited  by  our  own  experience  since 
1873;  by  the  reports  of  the  Russian  technical 
schools  as  exhibited  in  Philadelphia  in  1876;  and 
by  the  admirable  efforts  in  a  similar  direction  made 
in  Boston  by  President  John  D.  Runkle.  I  think  I 
can  fairly  claim  that  experience  has  justified  the  or- 
ganization of  this  institution,  under  the  name  of 
the  "Manual  Training  School." 

*  'The  sphere  of  the  school  is  intellectual  training.  To  add  to  the 
proper  work  of  schools  the  whole  of  moral  training,  and  then  to 
superadd  a  thorough  preparation  for  the  business  of  life,  is  to 
crippje  the  school  in  its  appropriate  sphere,  and  to  fail  in  the  im- 
possible labor  thus  to  be  assigned.  That  truth  cannot  be  discov- 
ered, nor  benevolence  and  Christianity  flourish,  without  manual 
training,  seems  absurd.  In  the  present  advocacy  of  this  training 
intellectual  power  is  denied,  except  as  it  is  derived  through  mat- 
ter. This  Is  the  grossest  mateiialism."— /Sup f.  ^.  P.  Marble,  of 
Woi^cesier^  Mass. 


PREFACE  ix 

I  will  define  a  manual  training  school  by  first 
telling  what  it  is  not. 

1.  It  is  not  a  "manual  labor"  school.  A  "manual 
labor"  school,  as  the  term  has  been  used  for  many 
years  in  America,  is  a  semi-charitable  institution, 
where  a  boy  may  in  part  pay  his  way  by  his  labor, 
while  receiving  an  ordinary  education.  The  labor 
comes  in  chiefly  as  a  means  of  support,  and  only 
remotely,  if  at  all,  as  a  means  of  education.  In  such 
schools  both  the  labor  and  the  education  are  rela- 
tively of  a  low  order. 

2.  It  IS  not  an  "industrial  school."  In  America 
an  industrial  school  is  generally  a  reform  school. 
In  Europe  it  is  an  establishment  intended  to  foster 
a  particular  industry,  and  all  the  pupils  are  directly 
trained  to  become  workmen  or  workwomen  in  that 
industry.  In  such  a  school,  literary  and  scientific 
training  plays  but  a  small  part  as  compared  with 
the  industrial  features. 

3.  It  is  not  a  trade  or  an  apprenticeship  school. 
Boys  attend  the  last  named  school  for  the  purpose 
of  learning  a  trade;  the  school  may  teach  only  one 
trade,  or  it  may  have  several  departments,  and  so 
teach  several  trades.  In  a  trade  school  every  boy 
learns  one  trade  and  only  one,  and  then  follows  it. 
Instead  of  a  daily  allowance  of  less  than  two  hours 


X  PREFACE 

in  a  shop,  and  five  or  six  hours  in  study,  recitation 
and  drawing,  it  is- generally  just  the  other  way.  In- 
stead of  a  broad  training  in  the  typical  tools  and 
processes  of  all  the  practical  arts,  with  a  view  to 
general  intelligence  and  the  acquisition  of  power  in 
the  social  organism,  the  aim  is  to  make  a  successful 
artisan  in  a  particular  trade. 

The  object  of  a  manual  training  school  is  to  make 
men,  not  mechanics.  It  inculcates  the  thoughtful 
study  and  use  of  both  books  and  tools.  Its  great 
object  is  education,  moral,  intellectual  and  physical; 
other  objects  are  secondary. 

That  industrial  results  will  surely  follow  its  intro- 
duction I  have  not  the  least  doubt,  but  they  will 
take  care  of  themselves.  Just  as  a  love  for  the 
beautiful  follows  a  love  for  the  true;  and  as  the 
high  arts  cannot  thrive  except  on  the  firm  founda- 
tion of  the  low  ones,  so  a  higher  and  finer  develop- 
ment of  all  industrial  standards  is  sure  to  follow  a 
rational  study  of  the  underlying  principles  and 
methods.  Every  object  of  attention  put  into  the 
school  room  should  be  put  there  for  two  reasons, 
one  educational,  the  other  economic.  Training,  cul- 
ture, skill,  comes  first  in  importance;  knowledge 
about  persons,  things,  places,  customs  tools,  meth- 
ods, comes  second.      It  is  only  by  securing  both 


PREFACE  xi 

objects  that  the  pupil  gains  the  great  prize,  which 
is  power  to  deal  successfully  w^ith  the  men,  things 
and  activities  which  surround  him, 

C.  M.  Woodward. 
Manual  Tbainhtg  School, 

St.  Louis,  April  24,  188G. 


^ 


I. 

General   Education. 


The  first  aim  of  education  is  to  make  noble  human 
beings;  and  this  means  complete  persons,  roundly 
developed,  with  all  their  faculties  as  much  exercised, 
trained  and  enlarged  as  can  be  in  their  special 
occupations.  A  certain  wise  and  instructive  phil- 
osopher loves  to  dwell  on  the  value  of  "whole 
thinking,"  that  is  to  say,  the  action  of  the  mind  on 
all  sides  and  aspects  of  a  subject,  walking  all  round 
it,  as  it  were,  instead  of  looking  on  it  only  from  one 
view-point;  for  a  one-point  view  of  anything  is  the 
same  as  to  see  it  in  a  flat  projection,  and  conse- 
quently to  some  degree  distorted  or  untrue.  Now, 
what  wholeness  is  to  thinking,  wholeness  also  is  to 
the  growth  of  mind,  heart,  soul  and  body;  namely, 
true  beauty;  for  beauty  is  symmetry  and  correctness, 
(which  means  holding  true  relations  with  all  things 
and  being  in  one's  proper  place  in  nature),  and 
power  (because  whatever  is  in  its  own  place  and 
truly  related  to  other  things  will  exercise  all  the 
power  that  belongs  to  it).  No  matter  how  strong, 
flourishing,  exuberant,  a  development  may  be,  if 
all  m  one  direction,  the  result  is  distortion,  unsight- 
liness,  uselessness;  as  may  be  seen  in  trees  on  the 


S  MANUAL  TRAINING 

sea-coast  whose  branches  all  point  and  lean  one  way 
by  reason  of  the  fierce  blasts  from  the  ocean,  so  that 
they  seem  as  if  the  limbs  on  one  side  had  failed  to 
grow;  and  the  added  verdure  of  the  other  side 
makes  not  the  trees  less  ugly  or  grotesque.  The 
half  of  a  thing,  whether  it  be  of  a  man,  of  a  thought, 
of  a  line  in  a  poem,  of  an  engine,  or  of  a  principle, 
is  either  delusive  or  worthless — unless  it  be  that  it 
serve  a  purpose  by  its  destruction,  as  the  half  of  a 
fruit  or  other  edible  which  becomes  useful  by  taking 
its  place  in  the  wholeness  of  some  organism.  But 
why  add  words  and  ilhistrations  for  so  plain  a  thing 
^s  that  the  end  of  e^ducation  is  to  make  whole,  large, 
noble  men?  Why,  indeed,  may  not  any  one  run 
who  reads  a  command  or  announcement  of  nature 
written  in  letters  so  large  before  the  mind?  Yet 
true  it  is  that  this  plain,  common  sense  has  not 
become  the  rule  of  institutions  of  learning,  or  of 
systems  of  education,  or  even  of  individual  men, 
except  a  few  of  the  wisest. 

A  wise  man  said:  '*  Every  one  must  elect  at  some 
time  in  his  life — perhaps  early — whether  he  will 
educate  himself  to  be  a  broad,  expanded  human 
being,  open  on  all  sides  to  the  countless  winds  of 
affairs,  interests,  principles,  sympathies,  humanities, 
or  whether  he  will  make  of  himself  an  acute  special- 


IN  EDUCATION 


ist — a  marvelous  development  of  a  particular  skill. 
For  myself,"  he  added,  "  I  cannot  hesitate  a 
moment.  I  wish  to  be  as  much  as  possible  of  what 
first  and  foremost  I  am,  namely,  a  man." 


11, 

Sjyecial  Education. 

Education  has  a  secondary  purpose,  namely,  to 
make  excellent,  thorough,  skilled  and  productiva 
workmen  in  all  branches  of  human  service,  whether 
in  mechanics,  agriculture,  philosophy,  poetry  or 
arts.  This  special  end  of  education  has  its  special 
means  and  training.  The  age  of  universal  knowl- 
edge, tritely  to  say,  has  passed;  so  completely,  in- 
deed, that  it  is  difficult  for  imagination  in  the  present 
stress,  whirl  and  complication  of  the  arts  and 
sciences,  the  immense  development,  the  daily  strides 
in  ail  industries  and  philosophies,  to  conceive  a 
time  when  an  industrious  and  able  scholar  could 
know  everything  to  be  known,  or,  at  least,  worth 
knowing.  The  only  way  to  equi])  the  mind  for  ser- 
vice in  any  department  at  present,  is  voluntarily  to 
be  ignorant  of  a  thousand  other  things ;  and  this  re- 
quires so  much  resolution  in  large  and  gifted  minds 
that  sometimes  such  persons  pass  through  life 
ineffective  because  they  have  not  self-denial  to 
endure  the  general  ignorance  necessary  for  the 
powerful  exercise  of  a  special  function.  To  try  to 
master  all  is  to  master  none.  "  SoaT,e  books, "  says 
Bacon,  "  are  to  be  tasted,  others  are  to  be  swallowed, 


6  MANVAL  TRAINING 

and  some  few  are  to  be  chewed  and  digested ;  that 
is,  some  books  are  only  to  be  read  in  part,  others  to 
be  read,  but  not  curiously,  and  some  few  to  be  read 
wholly  and  with  diligent  attention. "  If  the  great 
philosopher  were  living  now  he  would  add  that  there 
are  very  many  books  and  very  many  subjects  not 
even  to  be  tasted.  The  difficulty  in  education  is  to 
make  a  wise  choice  between  hosts  of  ignorances, 
most  of  which  we  must  submit  to.  What  not  to 
study  or  read  is  the  decision  that  taxes  wisdom  and 
■  forethought;  and  on  this  decision  turns  our  supply 
of  great  and  finished  workmen  in  all  departments  of 
knowledge  and  of  art. 


III. 

That  both  General  and  Sj^ecial  Education  are  needful: 
that  one  must  not  interfere  with  the  other'  and 
that  this  leads  to  Manual  Training  in  Education, 


If  it  be  plain  that  the  first  object  of  education  is 
to  make  complete  men,  and  yet  that  there  is  a  second 
end,  namely,  to  produce  special  laborers  of  partic- 
ular skill  and  great  power,  though  limited'  in  scope, 
it  follows  that  we  must  think  how  to  prevent  the 
second  aim  from  interfering  with  the  first.  This 
brings  into  view  the  subject  of  manual  training  in 
education.  Little  as  yet  the  training  of  the  hand 
has  been  given  a  place  in  the  school-house;  but  it 
belongs  there;  for  the  hand  and  the  brain,  the  mus- 
cular and  the  nervous  systems,  the  physical  and  the 
mental  powers,  stand  so  opposite  to  each  other, 
though  not  opposed,  are  so  different,  yet  each  neces- 
sary, being  the  two  great  orders  of  faculty  which 
make  up  the  whole  man,  that  to  education  of  the 
hand,  not  indeed  chiefly,  yet  fundamentally,  we 
must  look  to  obtain  in  one  a  more  nobly  grown 
human  being  and  a  skilled  worker  in  a  special  art. 
For  one  mental  exercise  has  something  in  it  of  ail 
others,  and  one  manual  activity  of  all  bodily  motion. 
A  poet  will  have  somethmg  of  the  virtues  of  history, 


8  MANUAL  TRAINING 

philosophy,  science,  politics,  economics  even,  per- 
haps of  mathematics;  a  machinist;  will  have  ex  arte 
something  of  the  benefits  of  the  manual  motions  of 
carpentry,  cabinet-making,  tin  work,  tanning, 
plumbing  and  many  other  crafts.  But  the  physical 
powers  of  a  poet  may  be  a  sheer  waste,  the  delica- 
cies of  whose  possible  fruits  he  may  not  even  dream 
of;  and  the  mind  of  the  hand- worker  may  go 
through  life  with  hardly  the  experience  of  an  abstract 
thought  or  generalization,  which,  Emerson  says,  is 
"  the  influx  of  divinity  into  the  mind,  hence  the 
thrill  which  attends  it." 

Therefore,  if  we  aim  to  combine  the  two  great 
ends  of  education,  namely,  whole  development  and 
special  skill,  we  should  begin  with  the  broad  dis- 
tinction between  body  and  mind;  in  other  words, 
let  us  head-train  the  hand-worker  and  hand-train 
the  head-worker.  Manual  training  and  head-train- 
ing together  form  the  only  whole  education. 

Edward  Atkinson,  in  a  report  to  a  committee  of 
the  Massachusetts  legislature  in  1879,  thus  defines 
the  end  and  purpose  of  school  and  shop  conjoined, 
that  is,  of  a  school  of  mechanical  arts: 

The  work  of  the  school  is  to  develop  the  mind 
and  to  give  the  skill  and  (jomprehension  of  a  thor- 
ough  mechanic   in   connection   with  other  studies 


n^  EDUCATION  9 

needed  for  a  good  common  school  education  or  in  a 
higher  course  of  professional  study.  The  work  in 
the  shop  is  to  teach  the  application  of  the  theory 
and  to  train  the  hand,  eye,  muscle,  and  intellect  to 
7  accuracy  and  readiness;  to  make  the  eye  and  hand 
competent  instruments  of  the  instructed  mind ;  to 
aim  to  train  mind  and  muscle  together,  so  that  in 
after  life  the  most  work  shall  be  done  with  the  least 
effort,  the  least  waste,  and  in  the  most  effective 
way. 


I  -/ 


IV. 

That  the  tvno-fold  Education  is  specially/  needful  to  the 
Hand-worker, 


It  is  noticeable  that  all  the  social  privileges,  re- 
fined and  agreeable  conditions,  very  often  ample  re- 
munerations, and  many,  if  not  most,  of  the  greatest 
pleasures  of  life,  consort  already  with  the  head- 
worker,  whether  eminent  in  literature  or  in  com- 
merce or  in  science.  The  hand  has  little  to  do  in 
it.  Knowledge  of  manufacture,  and  especially  any 
manual  capacity  therein,  may  have  little  part  in  the 
preparation  of  a  commission-dealer  in  the  product. 
Good  penmanship  makes  no  poem.  But  the  handi- 
craftsman has  vital  need  of  the  education  of  his 
mind.  For  where  there  is  no  mind,  hand-workep' 
and  serf-worker  mean  the  same.  The  handicrafts- 
man must  be  a  hand-worker  and  head-worker  to- 
gether to  be  better  than  a  mimic  of  a  few  bodily 
motions.  Herein  is  there  not  a  great  badge  of  dis- 
tinction and  honor  foi^  handicraft,  that  while  the 
poet,  the  historian,  the  essayist,  the  orator  may  be 
a  sloven  and  Hottentot  with  hi^  hands,  intelligence 
and  effort  of  mind  must  go  with  a  trained  hand  to 
attain  the  highest  result  in  hand-work?  This  is 
plain  enough  in  sculpture,  painting,   music.     It  is 


I'-i  MANUAL  TRAINING 

the  same  in  the  building  of  an  engine  and  in  all 
transformations  of  material.  But  no  honor  can  be 
worn  without  responsibility.  As  its  peculiar  demand 
of  accompanying  mind  is  a  glory  of  handicraft,  so 
the  hand-worker  ought  specially  to  feel  the  call  and 
the  need  to  be  an  educated  man.  Wanted  more 
and  more  every  day^ arej(  not  men  who  are  ''them- 
selves almost  a  part  of  an  automatic  mechanism," 
"ignorant  practicers  in  a  small  department  of 
trade,"  as  Edward  Atkinson  has  it,  but  mechanics, 
true  mechanics — a  term  of  large  meaning  and  of 
great  dignity. 

It  is,  perhaps,  usual  to  lay  stress  on  the  value  of 
manual  training  to  those  who  work  in  other  ways. 
This  is  true,  and  a  point  for  stress;  but  the  other 
side  is  equally  important.  Let  the  hand-workman 
be  collegized  (to  coin  a  term)  as  well  as  the  college 
man  be  hand-workmanized,  that  both  may  be 
college-bred,  thatis,  trained  in  a  collegium  or  collec- 
tion of  arts  and  of  masters. 


V. 

That  the  J  land- worker  needs  the  twofold  Education 
Economically . 


Manual  training  in  education  has  a  vast  econom- 
ical interest  for  the  handicraftsman ;  for  it  Tvill  in- 
crease his  power  over  his  material  and  over  himself. 
A  general  education,  and  especially  a  broad  mechan- 
ical training  aiming  to  lay  the  same  foundation  for 
a  special  trade  that  a  general  university  course 
gives  preliminary  to  a  law  school,  art  school,  or 
scientific  school — this  will  give  an  inestimable  sense 
of  independence  to  a  workman.  Such  is  the  exact 
effect  of  joining  manual  training  with  education;  for 
this  does  not  mean  to  join  this  or  that  trade  with  a 
,  school,  but  general  mechanical  instruction.  From 
an  English  report,  republished  in  this  country  by 
our  bureau  of  education,  we  take  the  following  con- 
cerning the  apprenticeship  schools  of  France. 

The  trade  instruction  in  the  workshops  is  subdi- 
vided into  two  courses.  In  the  first  the  pupils  are 
^  taught  the  nature  and  conversion  of  materials.  In 
the  second  they  pass  on  to  actual  construction.  The 
first  or  preparatory  course  is  the  same  for  all  the 
pupils.  They  all  go  in  rotation  through  the  workshops 
for  both  wood  and  iron.  One  of  the  reporters  on  the 
schools  says  that "  this  is  done  in  order  to  give  suppleness 


14  MANUAL  TRAINING 

and  certainty  to  the  hand,  and  to  enable  them,  when  they 
have  become  workmen,  to  take  up  in  case  of  need,  at 
any  rate  for  a  time,  a  trade  different  from  their  ordi- 
nary one,  and  thus  to  gain  a  living  in  bad  times," 
The  choice  of  a  trade  takes  place  only  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  second  course,  which  coincides 
with  that  of  the  second  year,  and  it  is  only  then  that 
they  begin  to  execute  actual  constructive  work.  No 
apprentice  is  allowed  to  commence  any  work, 
whether  complete  in  itself  or  a  part  of  a  machine, 
without  having  previously  made  a  sketch  or  a  draw- 
ing of  it  to  scale,  so  that  the  pupil  must  necessarily 
acquaint  himself  with  its  proportions  and  connec- 
tions and  understand  fully  the  nature  of  what  he  is 
doing. 


VI. 

That  the  Hand-worker  needs  the  two- fold  Education 
Socially. 


It  is  a  common  complaint  that  handicraftsmen 
are  not  admitted  into  the  same  social  relations  as 
men  of  letters,  merchants,  clerks  or  salesmen. 
Sometimes  this  is  said  to  be  owing  to  contempt  for 
a  laborious  life ;  but  I  hope  not,  and  it  is  far  from 
proved.  As  a  nation  we  are  hard  workers — too 
hard — and  the  merchant,  and  even  the  scholar,  often 
toils  more  slavishly  than  any  one  in  his  employ- 
ment. Probably  the  social  dis.tinction  is  one  of 
education,  nice  perception  and  refinement  in  man- 
ners. Many  a  hand-worker  earns  as  much  as  a 
clerk,  or  even  a  lawyer,  and  yet  his  home  will  not 
have  the  same  atmosphere,  nor  be  the  abode  of  the 
same  manners — a  difference  shown  in  the  few  books 
at  hand,  the  poor  pictures,  the  coarse  food  and  the 
rude  customs  at  table.  This  is  not  because  the  man 
has  been  using  a  hand-tool  all  day ;  but  because,  owing 
to  many  causes  dating  far  back,  there  has  been  an  ob- 
stinate lack  of  education,  and,  consequently,  of  out- 
ward delicacy  and  refinement.  As  fast  as  we  obtain 
in  the  handicraftsman  not  only  a  handworker,  but  a 
hand-and-head-worker — a  scientific  manual  laborer 


16  MANUAL  TRAINING 

— we  shall  escape  from  this  injurious  social  distinc- 
tion. But  it  will  not  be  so  much  social  feeling  that 
will  rise  above  it  as  the  handicraftsman  himself; 
for,  after  all,  it  is  mind  and  refinement  of  soul  that 
make  gentlehood  here.     Snobbery  goes  not  far. 


VII. 

Tliat  Hand-working  is  of  great  Dignity. 


But  it  is  to  be  said  and  enforced  that  band-work- 
ing is  very  dignified  in  itself.  It  would  seem  as  if 
this  need  not  be  argued;  and,  indeed,  it  need  not 
to  the  thoughtful,  the  well  instructed,  the  self-re- 
spectful. Yet  it  is  one  point  in  which  public  opin- 
ion and  social  feeling  need  to  be  educated,  although 
happily  there  are  many  and  good  signs  that  the  tide 
is  setting  the  right  way.  More  and  more  esteem 
and  valuation  rise  for  skilled  hand-workers  over 
counter-tenders  and  hangers-on  of  the  professions. 
More  and  more  it  will  be  held  shameful  and  a  con- 
fession of  ignorance  or  of  incompetency  in  young 
men  to  rush  for  clerkships  and  salesmen's  places. 
A  judge  eminent  on  the  bench  of  Massachusetts  told 
me  that  if  he  were  to  begin  life  agam  he  would  not 
be  a  lawyer,  but  a  mechanic,  so  high  was  his  appre- 
ciation of  the  dignity  of  a  skilled  hand's  command 
over  material.  We  shall  come  by  and  by  to  the  old 
Rabbinical  enthusiasm  for  the  dignity  of  hand-work, 
which  these  learned  teachers  enforced  both  by  pre- 
cept and  example.  They  said:  "Get  your  living 
by  even  skinning  carcasses  in  the  street,  and  do  not 


18  MANUAL  TRAINING 

say,  *I  am  a  priest,  I  am  a  great  man ;  this  work 
would  not  befit  my  dignity.'  "  "He  who  does  not 
teach  his  son  a  trade  teaches  him — robbery."  Rabbi 
Johannan  (ben  Zakkaj)  usually  went  by  the  name 
of  his  trade,  the  shoemaker;  Rabbi  Isaac  was  called 
the  blacksmith,  Shamma]  (contemporary  of  the  great 
Hillel)  was  a  carpenter  and  architect.  He  never 
disdained  to  carry  with  him  his  carpenter's  rule, 
even  when  teaching  in  the  great  synagogue.  Other 
rabbis  were  tailors,  bakers,  gritsmakers,  leather 
dressers,  oven  setters,  sandalmakers,  potters,  dyers, 
threadmakers,  coopers;  and  indeed  it  was  by  these 
manual  labors  that  they  lived,  for  there  were  no 
j)aid  teachers.  "Famous  teachers,"  says  Delitsch, 
^  "not  only  carried  the  chairs  on  their  shoulders  to 
the  college  because  all  labor  calling  for  physical  ex- 
ercise was  held  to  be  an  honor,  but  a  certain  Pine- 
has  was  cutting  stone  when  he  (the  stone  mason) 
was  informed  of  his  election  to  the  high  priesthood. 
Rabbi  Joseph  turned  a  mill,  Rabbi  Shesheth  drag- 
ged beams,  highly  praising  this  arduous  exercise, 
and  more  than  a  hundred  Rabbis,  whom  the  Tal- 
mud mentions,  were  artisans  and  bore  artisan 
names." 

Deficient  reverence  for  hand-work  seems  strange 
when  one  looks   with   due  wonder  and  awe  on  the 


IN  EDUCATION  19 

human  nand.  As  an  implement  to  deal  with  ma- 
terials, the  hand  is  a  structure  so  extraordinary  for 
its  flexibility,  innumerable  applications  and  count- 
less varieties  of  motions,  as  to  cause,  if  we  look  at 
it  well,  a  religious  awe.  "The  ancient  philosopher, 
Anaxagoras,"  says  Plutarch,  "assigned  the  hand 
for  the  cause  of  all  human  knowledge  and  discre- 
tion." That  old  philosopher  lacks  not  modern  fol- 
lowers who  say  that  whatever  may  be  the  delicacy, 
complexity  and  convolutions  of  the  human  brain, 
man,  without  his  hand,  would  be  but  a  brute.  As 
regards  arts  which  confer  on  life  comfort,  abundance 
and  refinement,  there  is  no  doubt  of  the  part  the 
hand  plays.  The  arts  useful  and  fine,  as  has  been 
said  beautifully,  "are  literally  handed  down  from 
generation  to  generation."  Analogously,  whoever 
considers  the  place,  function  and  power  of  the 
thumb  in  the  human  hand  will  not  wonder  that  it 
has  given  rise  to  the  expression  "to  thumb,"  mean- 
ing to  use  constantly  and  mdustriously.  The  pre- 
sence of  skill  in  the  hand  is  a  spiritual  fact,  an 
amazing,  inexplicable  thing,  an  unseen  presence 
like  what  we  call  life  or  soul  or  spirit  in  the  body, 
and  is  something  beyond  all  a  poet's,  saint's  or  pro- 
phet's power  to  praise.  A  scientific  musician  told 
me  he  had  composed  a  piece  of  music  which  was  re- 


^ 


> 


20  MANUAL  TRAINING 

jected  because  he  had  written  great  spread  chords 
which  could  be  performed  only  by  an  immense  hand 
like  his  own.  A  man  with  a  large  hand,  he  said, 
particularly  an  organist,  who  by  the  use  of  the  pe- 
dals has  become  used  to  the  effect  of  wide  chords, 
has  much  difficulty  in  writing  for  a  small  hand; 
but  he  added  that  some  small  hands  make  up  by 
amazing  skill.  He  had  heard  a  girl  play  large  hand 
chords  by  arpeggio  so  exquisitely  and  rapidly  as  to 
have  all  but  the  effect  of  one  simultaneous  stroke  of 
the  fingers,  indeed,  hardly  distinguishable;  and, 
taking  the  little  hand  in  his  own  afterward,  it  was 
a  marvel  how  it  could  be  the  tool  that  had  done 
such  things.  On  the  same  score  Huxley  claims 
proudly  the  right  to  be  called  a  handicraftsman.  He 
writes : 

Probably  at  this  stage  of  our  progress  it  may  oc- 
cur to  many  of  you  to  think  of  the  story  of  the  cob- 
bler and  his  last,  and  to  say  to  yourselves,  though 
you  may  be  too  polite  to  put  the  question  openly  to 
me :  "What  does  the  speaker  know  practically  about 
this  matter?  What  is  his  handicraft?"  I  think 
the  question  is  a  very  proper  one,  and,  unless  I  were 
prepared  to  answer  it,  I  hope  satisfactorily,  I  should 
have  chosen  some  other  theme.  The  fact  is,  I  am, 
and  have  been  any  time  these  thirty  years,  a  man 
who  works  with  his  hands — a  handicraftsman.  I 
do  not  say  this  in  the  broadly  metaphorical  sense 


^^N  EDUCATION  31 

in  which  fine  gentlemen,  with  all  the  delicacy  of 
Agag  about  them,  trip  to  the  hustings  about  election 
time  and  protest  that  they,  too,  are  workingmen.  I 
really  mean  my  words  to  be  taken  in  their  direct, 
literal,  and  straightforward  sense.  In  fact,  if  the 
most  nimble-fingered  watchmaker  among  you  will 
come  to  my  workshop  he  may  set  me  to  put  a  watch 
together,  and  I  will  set  him  to  dissect,  say,  a  black 
beetle's  nerves.  I  do  not  wish  to  vaunt,  but  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  I  shall  manage  my  job  to  his 
satisfaction  sooner  than  he  will  do  his  piece  of 
work  to  mine. 

A  thorough  mechanic,  who  is  also  an  inventor 
and  an  intelligent  thinker  in  science,  once  stretched 
out  his  right  hand  before  me  and  said :  "  Sir,  that 
hand  is  worth  |50,000I  I  mean  that  the  skill  in 
those  fingers,  invisible  to  you,  will  yield  me  as 
much  ^:>er  annum  as  $50,000  excellently  invested." 
Could  a  greater  and  more  admirable  thing  for  inde- 
pendence,, for  manliness,  for  power  over  circum- 
stances, be  said  by  human  being?  One  valuable  qual- 
ity, almost  a  touching  fact,  as  if  the  kind  Creator  had 
endowed  with  a  democratic  scope  this  wonderful 
organ  which  relates  man  so  intimately  and  30  closely 
with  materials,  is  the  exceeding  educableness  of 
the  hand,  the  certainty  that  almost  any  hand  can 
be  trained  to  admirable  degrees  of  skill.  This 
power,  which  has  such  dignity  and  utility,  is  open 


32  MANUAL  TRAINmO 

to  all,  wherein  it  is  different  from  poetry,  music,  or 
the  like.  Says  Leland:  "There  is  not  one  person 
living  having  the  usual  amount  of  brains  and  hands 
who  cannot  learn  to  design  well  in  simple  decora- 
tive drawing  in  a  few  weeks,  or,  in  extreme  cases, 
in  a  few  months,  if  he  or  she  will  try  to  acquire  it. 
There  is  not  one  person  who  can  execute  a  simple 
design  who  cannot  master  one  or  more  of  the  minor 
arts."  From  statistics  of  apprenticeship  schools  in 
Paris  it  appears  "that  the  greater  number  of  boys 
become  engine-builders  or  patternmakers,  the  two 
trades  which  in  Paris  command  the  highest  wages" 
— thus  showing  the  great  educableness  of  the  hand 
and  the  unquestionable  prevalence  of  the  capacity 
for  its  superior  degrees  of  skill.  Yet  the  highest  de- 
grees seldom  can  be  attained  in  one  man's  life.  It 
is  a  striking  tribute  to  the  dignity  of  the  hand,  and 
also  to  the  subtile  results  of  mechanical  training, 
that  there  is  an  inherited  aptitude  for  manual  work, 
and  that  previous  training  seems  to  have  gone  into 
the  very  fibers  and  blood  of  the  body.  Francis  A. 
Walker  said  before  the  New  England  Manufacturers 
and  Mechanic's  Institute: 

There  is  great  virtue  m  the  inherited  industrial 
aptitudes  and  instincts  of  a  population,  and  those 
aptitudes  and  instincts  may  be  wonderfully  special 


IN  EDUCATION  23 

and  minute.  You  can  no  more  make  a  nrst- class 
dyer  or  a  first-class  machinist  in  one  generation 
than  you  can  in  one  generation  make  a  Cossack  -^ 
horseman  or  Tartar  herdsman.  In  the  highest  in- 
dustrial sense  artisans  are  born,  not  made.  The 
problem  is  not  so  much  to  train  as  to  breed.  Aside 
from  transmitted  aptitudes  and  instincts  there  is 
also  great  virtue  in  the  inherited  traditions  and 
prescriptions  which  pertain  to  the  body  of  work- 
men, where  any  occupation  making  large  demands 
for  nicety  of  perception  and  nicety  of  manipulation 
has  been  long  pursued.  Writers  have  been  driven 
to  explain  the  unapproachable  excellence  of  the 
steel  blades  which  have  for  centuries  been  made  in 
the  city  of  Toledo,  by  assuming  some  mysterious 
property  in  the  water  with  which  swords  are  tem- 
pered. It  is  not  the  baptism  of  the 'blade,  but  the 
baptism  of  the  artisan,  which  works  the  miracle  of 
peerless  edge  and  perfect  elasticity.  It  is  the  tem- 
per of  the  mind  of  the  worker  to  which,  in  the  first 
instance,  is  due  the  temper  of  the  weapon  he  forges. 

When  such  skill  is  attained  in  the  hand,  accom- 
panied, as  it  always  will  be  in  its  highest  exercise, 
with  judgment  and  knowledge,  what  end  to  its  dig- 
nity, power  and  command?  While  explaining  the 
forging  of  vast  rotary  shafts  for  steamships,  then  in 
the  making,  the  superintendent  of  a  shop  said:  "A 
single  false  blow  might  spoil  the  whole  thing,  a  bit 
of  ^t  might  make  a  flaw  which  would  cost  us  thou- 


24  MANUxiL  TRAINING 

sands  of  dollars  for  damages.  It  takes  a  good  me- 
chanic to  boss  such  a  job,  and  we  have  to  pay  him 
good  wages, — $12.00  a  day.  He  is  the  most  im- 
portant man  in  the  shop. " 

Note  is  to  be  taken  of  the  artistic  value  of  hand- 
work and  the  direct  connection  of  the  hand  with 
aesthetic  sensibility.  There  is  now  a  revolution,  or 
perhaps  an  education  coming  to  pass  in  the  public 
mind,  which  makes  known  and  felt  the  distinction 
between  the  merely  beautiful  and  a  quality  in  the 
beauty  which  gives  it  also  a  title  to  be  called  artistic. 
On  this  whole  subject  we  cannot  do  better  than  to 
refer  to  Mr.  Leland's  paper,  published  by  the  bureau 
of  education,  and  to  quote  from  it  briefly: 

Great  stress  may  be  laid  on  the  fact  that  as  the 
flower  precedes  the  fruit,  decorative  art  is  developed 
in  the  race  before  it  *ittains  proficiency  in  the  prac- 
tical. Before  men  had  good  axes  or  knives  or  plows 
or  saws  they  made  jewelry  and  embroidery  far  su- 
perior in  many  resj^ects  to  anything  now  produced 
anywhere.  We  can  imitate  the  shield  described  by 
Homer,  but  the  artist  does  not  live  who  could  design 
anything  so  elegant  and  original.  There  is  an  enor- 
mous and  rapidly  growing  demand  for  hand-made 
objects.  As  education  and  culture  progress  people 
begin  to  find  out  that  in  jewelry,  as  in  pictures,  or 
even  in  fire-irons,  a  thing  to  be  truly  artistic  must 
be  hand-made.     It  is  not  as  yet  generally  under- 


IN  EDUCATION  25 

stood  that  machinery,  though  it  may  manufacture 
pretty  things,  cannot  make  them  artistic.  There 
are  no  such  things  as  artistic  works  made  in  any 
way  except  by  hand.  Only  the  vulgar  and  ignorant 
confuse  or  confound  that  which  is  beautiful  with 
what  is  artistic.  Art  does  not  consist  entirely  in 
prettiness,  its  best  characteristic  is  the  impression 
of  individual  character.  This  disappears  in  the 
machine,  in  fact,  the  more  perfect  machine  work  is, 
the  less  it  is  artistic.  The  faultlessly  finished  piece 
of  silver  work,  such  as  no  mere  smith  could  ever 
rival,  shows  indeed  the  result  of  ingenuity,  but  not 
art.  A  Soudan  bracelet  made  with  a  stone  and  a 
nail  is  far  more  artistic  than  a  Connecticut  mill 
Qianufactured  dollar  bangle;  yet  the  latter  is  in' 
finitely  the  more  < 'finished"  of  the  two. 


VIII. 

That  Manual  Training  in  Education  is  Salutary  in 

Morals, 


The  importance  of  the  exercise  and  training  of 
the  whole  body  as  a  factor  in  morality  is  very  great. 
This,  indeed,  is  a  subject  too  large  for  these  pages. 
Besides,  it  is  collateral,  for  my  subject  is  the  train- 
ing of  the  hand.  Yet  the  nice  points  in  which  the 
training  of  this  one  organ  of  the  body  affects  moral- 
ity are  too  many  and  too  important  for  the  limits 
of  this  little  essay.  Let  it  be  noted  chiefly  that 
whatever  benefits  result  morally  from  training  and 
developing  the  whole  body,  spnng  even  more  deli- 
cately from  the  training  of  the  hand ;  because  not 
only  must  many  muscles  be  exercised,  and,  indeed, 
the  whole  body  be  brought  into  play  by  manual 
occupation,  so  that  all  the  advantages  of  physical' 
activities  are  obtained,  but  the  body  is  exerted  in 
the  most  interesting  manner  for  results  which  are 
useful  in  themselves  beyond  the  exercise  obtained 
in  producing  them,  and  in  a  way  which  calls  the 
mental  faculties  into  joint  operation.  Therefore, 
after  we  have  enumerated  all  the  general  good  and 
ethical  results  of  bodily  activity,  such  as  the  calming 
of  the  passions,  the  moral  benefits  of  industry,  avoid- 


28  MANUAL  TRAINING 

ance  of  the  ills  of  idleness,  protection  from  many 
foiTQS  of  temptation  and  those  often  the  worst,  still 
we  are  far  from  doing  justice  to  the  moral  benefits  of 
a  manual  training  which  has  produced  a  skillful, 
mobilized,  useful  and  strong  hand.  It  is  a  worthy 
and  jThilosophic  question  how  far  and  why  hand 
culture  must  be  joined  with  head  culture  to  attain 
the  highest  moral  condition  and  to  erect  the  greatest 
moral  safeguards.  A  hint  of  one  answer  may  be 
found  in  Chap.  I,  where  I  have  said  that  hand- 
training  and  head-training  together  make  the  only 
whole  education.  The  ethical  advantage  of  the 
union  may  be  assumed;  for  no  man  can  distort  him- 
self by  exclusive  attention  to  one  order  of  faculties, 
and  especially  by  neglecting  to  keep  good  balance 
between  the  two  fundamental  co-ordinates  of  his 
being — body  and  mind — without  finding  the  distor- 
tion reporting  itself  in  moral  obtuseness  and  dis- 
order. There  are  some  classes  of  moral  excellences 
in  which  the  connection  is  immediately  obvious;  for 
example  high  ethical  qualities  difficult,  perhaps 
impossible,  in  a  condition  of  servitude.  In  these, 
y  everything  that  decreases  a  man's  independence 
and  conscious  self-reliance  tends  to  diminish  his 
morality.  Conversely,  whatever  increases  a  man's 
power  over  circumstances  and  builds  up  his  self- 


IN  EDUCATION  29 

reliance,  nourishes  many  noble  qualities  that  de- 
pend thereon.  Some  of  these  are  truthfulness, 
courage,  generosity,  philanthropy,  and  common 
honesty.  The  connection  between  independence 
and  self-respect  is  very  close,  and  again  between 
self-respect  and  many  moral  qualities  of  great 
value.  Therefore,  these  orders  of  morality  are 
directly  fortified  by  a  training  of  the  hand,  which 
makes  a  man  at  home  and  powerful  on  the  earth 
and  amid  materials,  and  lifts  him  above  slavish 
helplessness  in  exigencies.  Can  any  one  enlarge 
the  soul  of  his  hand  (bethinking  ourselves  of  a 
philosophical  doctrine  that  the  soul  occupies  the 
whole  body, — which  at  least  has  an  important 
thought  underneath  it)  find  crystallize  intelligence 
in  that  wondrous  organ  without  becoming  more  of  a 
man;  and  what  is  that  but  to  say,  a  better  man 
throughout?  He  may  not  be  a  good  man  then;  but 
still  worse  he  would  be  if  his  hand  were  clumsy  and 
useless. 


IX. 

That  Manual  Training  in  Education  is  Salutary  for 
the  Mind. 


Manual  training  in  education  is  like  a  sponsor  at 
the  baptism  of  intelligence,  so  mucli  will  it  under- 
take the  good  growth  of  mind.  Knowledge  is  an 
obvious  point  in  which  manual  training  serves  in- 
tellectual superiority.  This  needs  but  statement. 
Plainly  it  is  not  only  a  useful  thing,  but  an  accom- 
lishment,  an  admirable  power,  to  know  fine  work 
from  sham,  and  hence  to  feel  a  thrill  of  admiration 
when  excellence  comes  before  us.  And  when  we 
reflect  on  the  many  kinds  of  manual  production, 
how  sad  to  be  ignorant  of  them  all — of  woodworking 
in  all  its  departments,  blacksmi thing,  metal  work- 
ing, the  lathe,  the  plane,  soldering,  brazing,  plumb- 
ing, painting,  engraving,  stonecutting,  casting,  and 
a  hundred  other  notable  activities  of  the  hand. 
Even  the  knowledge  and  judgment  of  materials 
which  hand-work  gives  is  of  itself  a  pleasure  and  a 
dignity. 

But  knowledge  is  only  the  tool  or  the  material  for 
the  mind's  work.  Turn  to  the  effects  of  manual 
training  on  intelligence.  It  is  not  easy  to  set  too 
high  the  mental  value  of  a  trained  hand  (provided  a 


32  MANUAL  TBAININO 

sound  education  join  "with  manual  training)  or  to  do 
justice  to  the  many  subtile  ways  in  which  skill  of 
hand  ministers  to  acumen  of  mind.  There  is  a  cur- 
ious ethnological  argument  on  this  point  which  I 
will  quote  from  a  scientific  journal: 

It  is  well  known  that,  in  its  development,  each 
new  horn  being  passes  through  very  much  the  same 
stages  that  his  ancestors  have  been  through  before 
him.  Even  after  birth  the  growth  of  the  child's  in- 
telligence simulates  the  progress  of  the  human  race 
from  the  savage  condition  to  that  of  civilization.  It 
has  been  shown  by  Preyer,  and  others,  who  have 
studied  infant  development,  that  a  faculty  which 
has  been  acquired  by  the  race  at  a  late  stage  is  late 
in  making  its  appearance  in  the  child.  Now,  read- 
ing and  writing  are  arts  of  comparatively  recent 
achievement.  Savage  man  could  reap  and  sow,  and 
weave,  and  build  houses  long  before  he  could  com- 
municate his  thoughts  to  a  person  at  a  distance  by 
means  of  written  speech.  There  is,  then,  reason  to 
believe  that  a  child's  general  intelligence  would  be 
best  trained  by  making  him  skillful  in  many  kinds 
of  manual  labor  before  beginning  to  torture  him 
with  letters;  and  the  moral  to  be  derived  is,  that 
> primary  instruction  should  be  instruction  in  manual 
dexterity,  and  that  reading  and  writing  could  be 
learned  with  pleasure  and  with  ease  by  a  child  who 
had  been  fitted  for  taking  them  up  by  the  right  kind 
of  preparation.  The  argument  is  a  novel  one,  and 
it  certainly  seems  plausible. 


IN  EDUCATION  33 

This  argument  is  not  to  be  passed  by  because 
somewhat  it  has  the  aspect  of  a  curious  speculation. 
Marvelousness  and  fact  go  hand  in  hand  in  creation, 
and  in  no  subjects  more  plainly  than  in  the  rela- 
tions of  mind  to  body.  If  we  consider  the  vast  in- 
fluence on  the  mind  of  a  quickened  observation,  and 
how  primary  is  observation  in  acquiring  knowledge, 
we  shall  be  at  no  loss  to  reason  that  the  development 
of  the  senses,  touch  included,  and  the  training  of 
the  hand  in  artisanship,  must  be  a  root  of  the 
growth  of  mind.  This,  plain  in  theory,  is  supported 
by  direct  testimony.  In  a  report  by  Professor  Ord* 
way  to  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology 
on  industrial  education  is  the  following  relating  to 
hand-work  schools  in  Sweden : 

Many  are  united  with  the  public  schools,  so  that 
hand-work  and  head-work  are  carried  on  under  the 
same  management ;  and  it  is  generally  found  that 
when  four  or  six  hours  a  week  are  devoted  to  hand- 
work, the  other  studies  suffer  no  detriment,  but  are  ^ 
pursued  with  the  greater  zeal. 

Another  writer,  speaking  of  a  carpentry  shop  con- 
nected with  the  Dwight  School  in  Boston  says : 

It  is  said  that  boys  who  work  in  this  shop  a  few 
hours  each  week  do  not  fall  behind  the  others  in,^ 
scholarship,  and  all  that  they  learn  in  the  trade  is 
clear  gain. 


84  MANUAL  TMAUVING 

In  Leland's  paper  on  "Industrial  Art  in  Schools," 

published  by  the  bureau  of  education,  I  find: 

It  is  gradually  or  rapidly  being  realized  that 
children  can,  while  at  school,  profitably  practice  de- 
corative arts.  It  is  also  quite  as  true  that  this  prac- 
tice, far  from  interfering  with  the  regular  studies, 
actually  aids  and  stimulates  them.  While  the  minor 
arts,  guided  by  a  knowledge  of  decorative  design, 
are  so  easy  as  to  be  regarded  by  all  children  as  a 
recreation,  they  are  at  the  same  time  of  practical 
value  in  training  the  eye  and  hand  and  awakening 
quickness  of  perception.  There  have  come  under 
my  observation  a  great  number  of  instances  in 
which  children  who  have  been  regarded  as  dull  in 
everything  have  shown  great  aptness  and  ingenuity 
in  designing,  modeling  or  carving.  When  this  skill 
is  awakened  there  comes  with  it  far  greater  clever- 
ness in  those  studies  or  pursuits  in  which  the  pupil 
was  previously  slow.  I  believe  it  to  be  a  great 
truth,  as  yet  too  little  studied,  that  sluggish  minds 
may  be  made  active,  even  by  merely  mechanical 
exercises.  This  holds  good  as  regards  the  practice 
of  the  minor  arts  by  children.  It  is  somewhat  re- 
markable that,  while  every  one  is  quick  to  observe 
mental  ability  or  activity  when  transmitted  from 
progenitors,  very  few  notice  the  innumerable  in- 
stances in  which  it  is  developed  by  education  or  cir- 
cumstances. It  is  not  a  matter  of  theory,  but  of 
fact  and  observation,  that  all  children  who  practice 
decorative  arts  are  thereby  improved  botli  mentally 
and  morally.     The  consciousness  of  being  able  to 


-^^^^IN  EDUCATION  35 

make  something  well  which  will  sell  gives  them  pro- 
per pride  and  confidence  in  their  ability  to  master 
other  studies.  It  also  conduces  to  quiet  habits  and 
content. 

Opportunity  and  incentive  to  join  theory  and 
practice  are  important.  We  are  not  likely  to  wish, 
or  to  strive  at  the  expense  of  much  labor,  to  under- 
stand the  explanation  of  things  which  we  care 
nothing  about  doing.  This  thirst  for  knowledge  be- 
longs only  to  scientific  minds.  But  who,  if  oppor- 
tunity be  at  his  door,  will  not  wish  and  work  to 
understand  the  laws,  the  relations,  the  causes,  in 
short,  the  theory  or  science  of  arts  which  he  is  con- 
tinually practicing?  Even  to  one  of  pure  scientific 
impulse  for  theory,  practice  and  observation  inten- 
sify, brighten,  direct  and  regulate  theoretical  studies. 

Therefore,  in  general  education,  theory  should  be 
opened  to  the  developing  artisan,  and  manual  prac- 
tice to  the  rising  student  of  science.  But  in  this 
connection  it  is  to  be  said  and  enforced  especially 
that  the  manual  training  school,  by  reason  of  its 
twin  objects,  intellectual  and  mechanical,  is  becom- 
ing a  necessity  because  of  the  minute  and  degrading 
sub-division  of  manufacturing  labor.  Edward  At- 
kinson says:  "I  lately  inspected  a  shop  in  which 
sewing  machines  were  being  made,  where  one  cam 
was  shown  me  which  passed  through  sixty  hands 


36  MAMUAL  TRAINING 

before  it  was  ready  for  its  place  in  the  sewing  ma- 
chine." On  this  point  sj)eaks  another  circular  of 
our  bureau  of  education. 

Machinery  is  making  men  into  machines  at  such 
V  a  rate  that  humanity  is  becoming  seriously  alarmed 
at  the  inevitable  result.  The  old  apprentice  had  a 
chance  to  rise,  since  he  learned  a  whole  trade;  the 
modern  workman ,  who  is  kept  at  making  the  six- 
tieth part  of  a  shoe,  and  at  nothing  else,  by  a  master 
whom  he  never  sees,  is  becoming  a  mere  serf  to 
capital.  Even  the  industrial  school,  with  its  "prac- 
tical" work,  can  do  nothing  against  this  onward  and 
terrible  march  of  utilitaria.  It  is  in  the  teaching 
of  art  and  of  the  superiority  of  hand-work  in  all  that 
constitutes  taste  that  the  remedy  will  be  found.  By- 
and-by,  when  culture  shall  have  advanced — as  it 
will — there  will  be  an  adjustment  of  interests.  Ma- 
chinery will  supply  mere  physical  comforts.  Man, 
nnd  not  machinery,  will  minister  to  taste  and  refine- 
ment. 

This  minute  specialization  has  become  nearly  as 

great  a  difficulty  in  science  as  in  mechanics,  and 

the  intellectual  result  is  the  same.     A  writer  says : 

Among  scientific  men  themselves  the  increasing 
specialization  of  their  employments — inevitable,  as 
far  as  we  see,  for  the  present — has  produced,  and  is 
likely  to  produce,  most  serious  disadvantages.  It 
is  Mill,  we  think,  and  before  himComte,  the  French 
philosopher,  who  deplores  the  moral  and  social  ef- 
fect of  this  dispersion  of  effort,  and  the  concentra- 


IN  EDUCATION  37 

tion  of  it  on  only  minute  fragments  of  the  business 
of  life.  The  interests  of  the  whole,  says  the  former, 
the  bearings  of  things  on  the  ends  of  the  social  un- 
ion, are  less  and  less  present  to  the  minds  of  men 
who  have  so  contracted  a  sphere  of  activity.  The 
insignificant  details  which  form  their  whole  occupa- 
tion, the  infinitely  minute  wheel  they  help  to  turn 
in  the  machinery  of  society,  does  not  arouse  or 
gratify  any  feeling  of  public  spirit  or  unity  with 
their  fellow  men.  A  man's  mind  is  as  fatally  nar- 
rowed, and  his  feelings  toward  the  great  ends  of 
humanity  as  miserably  stunted,  by  giving  all  his, 
thoughts  to  the  classification  of  a  few  insects  or  the^ 
resolution  of  a  few  equations  as  to  sharpening  the 
points  and  putting  on  the  heads  of  pins. 

If  we  suppose  a  naturalist,  not  only  drifting,  af- 
ter his  general  education,  into  such  minute  special' 
ized  labor,  but  trained  just  for  that  from  the  begin- 
ing  and  for  no  other,  it  is  plain  he  would  be 
unutterably  narrow,  mentally  worthless,  and  but  a 
shred  or  shadow  of  a  man.  Yet  just  so  is  the  hand- 
workman  made  at  present. 

There  is  another  effect  of  manual  occupation  on 
mental  habit,  which  perhaps  is  first  in  importance, 
namely,  the  constant  and  unavoidable  demands 
which  manual  training  makes  on  accuracy,  and  the 
consequent  habit  of  minute,  painstaking  application, 
patience  and  exactness  which  is  developed.      The 


38  MANUAL  TRAINING 

man  who  will  labor  for  weeks  or  months  to  make 
surface  plates  that  fit  the  one  on  the  other  like  a 
film  of  oil  to  either,  or  who  must  work  a  fitting  true 
to  the  thousandth  of  an  inch,  or  make  an  edge 
which  is  as  near  the  material  realization  of  a  mathe- 
matical line  as  mortals  can  come,  will  not  be  likely, 
if  his  mind  be  directed  to  reasonings  in  economy, 
philosophy,  morals  or  statecraft,  to  dismiss  the 
points  with  carelessness,  or  satisfy  himself  with 
tricks  of  logic  or  with  off-hand  argument.  He  will 
run  his  thought  as  close  logically  on  the  subject  as 
he  runs  his  tool  on  material.  Nature  looks  after  the 
mechanic's  thoroughness  and  takes  him  in  hand  to 
produce  a  splendid  instance  of  that  half  mental,  half 
moral  excellence  called  precision;  for  by  no  other 
way  will  nature  let  any  result  come  forth  from  the 
work.  Examine  the  striking  difference  in  this  re- 
spect between  an  argument  before  a  jury,  an  oration 
before  the  Senate,  a  sermon  before  a  congregation, 
and  a  piece  of  finished  mechanism.  A  forensic 
speech  or  a  religious  discussion  may  be  a  glaring 
outrage  on  facts  of  history  and  of  science  and  on 
the  principles  of  reasoning ;  yet  they  will  serve  their 
close-at-hand  purpose  just  as  well — that  is  to  say, 
they  will  suit  all  the  requirements  of  the  client,  the 
jury,  the  Senate,  the  church,  which  are  the  masters 


IN  EDUCATION  39 

in  the  worif,  and  seldom  ask  exactness,  either  in 
thought  or  in  fact.  But  what  if  a  mechanic  build 
a  machine  similarly,  and  for  chiefly  its  effect  on 
the  ear  or  eye  or  fancy?  Nature  is  a  different  mis- 
tress; she  accepts  no  hotchery  of  that  sort.  The 
machine  refuses  to  work,  which  is  the  vengeance  of 
Nature  indignant  with  inaccuracy  and  bad  mental 
habits.  Accordingly,  a  hand-workman  is  driven  to 
precision  by  the  very  nature  of  his  occupation.  A 
good  workman  is  he  who  obeys  that  requirement 
and  labors  patiently,  and  at  last  successfully,  for 
the  attainment  of  an  ideal  precision.  And  this 
manual  necessity  has  incalculable  effect  (especially 
if  any  superjacent  education  be  added)  to  make  good  y 
habits  of  thought.  After  conversing  much,  as  my 
position  and  occupation  have  required  me  to  do,  with 
men  of  all  classes  anu  grades,  I  must  own  I  have 
found  no  class,  not  scientific  or  college-bred  men 
themselves,  who  have  been  more  stimulating,  help-  ^^ 
ful,  and  valuable  in  conversation  than  fine  mechan- 
ics, because  the  exactitude  and  patience  of  their 
manual  work  has  created  in  them  a  "habit  of  excel- 
lence" in  all  operations,  whether  reflective  or  exe= 
cutive. 


X. 

That  Manual  Training  in  Education  is  Salutary  foi 
the  Body. 


Health  is  an  advantage  accruing  from  manual 
training.  This  point  needs  no  more  than  statement, 
since  it  is  obvious  that  bodily  exercise  is  in  itself 
conducive  to  bodily  vitality,  and  especially  so  when 
united  with  mental  exercise.  There  is  a  peculiar 
healthfulness  in  mental  and  physical  work  con- 
joined, as  a  physician  (Elam,  in  "A  Physician's 
Problems")  has  taken  pains  to  testify,  averring  that, 
when  he  wishes  to  strengthen  a  feeble  child,  he  pro- 
vides for  due  mental  exercise  as  carefully  as  for  phy- 
sical. A  striking  testimony  is  found  in  a  circular 
of  the  bureau  of  education,  which  gives  an  account 
of  apprenticeship  schools  in  France.  In  one  of  these 
the  school  hours  are  twelve  in  number,  from  7  in 
the  morning  to  7  in  the  evening,  with  an  intermis- 
sion of  two  hours  only  for  meals.    The  report  says : 

During  the  first  two  years  six  hours  daily  are 
spent  in  the  workshop  and  four  in  the  school.  In 
the  third  year  eight  hours  are  spent  in  the  workshop 
and  two  in  the  school,  leaving  in  each  case  two  hours 
for  meals  and  recreations,  the  latter  including  three 
hours  of  gymnastic  exercise  per  week.  When  we 
visited  the  school,  unannounced,  we  found   the  lads 


43  MANUAL  TRAINING 

working  steadily  and  looking  strong  and  healthy. 
M.  Greard,  in  his  report  of  1878,  says  that  during 
the  five  preceding  years  not  one  of  the  boys  had 
died. 


XL 

That  Manual  Training  is  Beneficial  to  the  Fiich. 


I  come  to  the  benefits  to  tlie  community  from 
manual  training  as  a  part  of  education.  One  advan- 
tage has  ox^ened  which  is  to  be  hailed  gladly.  It  is 
perhaps  as  important  as  any,  and  yet  has  taken  ob- 
servers so  by  surj)rise  as  even  to  create  adverse  crit- 
icism. I  mean  what  I  may  call  in  general  the 
elevation  of  the  rich — that  is,  the  lifting  up  of  them 
from  their  adulation  of  mere  possessions  to  appre- 
ciation of  the  greater  dignity  of  skill  and  workman- 
ship. There  is  a  deep  and  serious  import  in 
George  Eliot's  phrase,  "the  perishing  upper  classes." 
Now,  it  is  found  happily  that  not  only  the  poor,  but 
the  sons  of  rich  men  take  eagerly  to  manual  train- 
ing schools.  This  has  been  criticised,  as  if  these 
schools  ought  to  be  the  special  advantage  of  the 
needy.  But  this  is  to  misunderstand  their  nature, 
and  to  overlook  one  of  their  greatest  benefits  to  the 
community.  Just  so  far  as  boys  from  the  wealthier 
classes  throng  them  will  they  be  fulfilling  one  of  the 
most  important  of  their  natural  functions — namely, 
to  glorify  and  dignify  fine  grades  of  hand-work. 
When  I  saw  in  a  Pennsylvania   steel   foundry  a 


\^ 


44  MANUAL  TRAINING 

young  man  coarsely  clad  in  overalls,  smutty  as  to 
hands  and  face  with  a  highly  ethical  (as  I  will  call 
it)  grime,  and  afterward  met  that  same  young  fellow 
in  a  parlor,  taking  his  place  easily,  with  beautiful 
manners,  in  the  circle  to  which  ancestral  wealth  in- 
troduced him,  I  thought  both  ends  of  the  spectacle 
honorable  and  delightful.  There  can  be  no  health-^ 
ier  facts  for  this,  or  indeed  any,  country,  than  such ; 
and  whatever  manual  training  school  helps  or  re- 
veals such  a  tendency,  is  an  encouragement  for  the 
present  and  a  boon  for  the  future. 


XII. 

That  Manual  Training  is  Beneficial  tp  the   Poor. 


A  benefit  to  the  commimity  is  the  elevation  of  the 
poor,  a  different  uplifting,  but  no  less  real,  though 
less  ethical  and  noble,  than  that  which .  manual 
training  confers  on  the  rich.  I  mean  their  eleva- 
tion to  the  union  of  theory  with  practice,  and  also  ^ 
to  a  greater  command  of  themselves  and  of  their 
conditions.  It  is  one  of  the  great  facts  of  this  age 
that  more  than  ever  before  the  poor  go  to  school. 
It  is  a  grand  fact  that  the  classes  are  steadily  dimin- 
ishing or  disappearing  which  have  no  ambition  or 
no  way  to  obtain  more  than  a  bare  subsistence. 
But  now  that  education  is  not  merely  for  the 
socially  elevated,  but  is  charged  with  elevating 
socially  all  persons  who  will,  we  must  fit  the  educa- 
tion to  such  condition  as  many  classes  now  are  in, 
that  is,  join  manual  training  with  theoretical  studies 
and  with  literature,  and  thereby  so  educate  as  to 
show  the  inherent  dignity  of  hand-work,  while  at  the 
same  time  we  improve  it;  for  most  of  the  pupils 
from  these  classes  must  get  their  bread  with  the 
things  that  can  be  seen  and  handled;  and  well  is  it 
for  the  world  that  it  is  so.     A  writer  says  happily 


46  MANUAL  TRAINING 

and  wittily:  "The  old-fashioned  system  seems  to 
have  been  meant  to  send  its  graduates  straight  to 
heaven,  for  it  utterly  ignored  the  possibility  of  their 
ever  having  to  use  their  hands  or  feet." 


XIII. 

That  Manual  Training  is  Im/portant  for  Girls. 


An  economic  benefit,  which  also  has  much  to  do 
mih.  moral  interests,  is  the  immense  value  that 
manual  training,  once  thoroughly  organized  in  edu- 
cation, will  have  for  girls.  Is  it  true  that  we  are 
behind  other  nations  in  this  particular?  There  are 
those  who  assert  that  "we  have  not  yet  given  the 
American  girl  as  good  a  chance  to  learn  how  to  earn 
her  living  or  to  take  care  of  a  family  as  is  enjoyed 
by  her  sisters  in  France  or  Sweden,  or  even  Mexico.'"' 
If  this  be  true,  the  dangerous  omission  should  re- 
ceive instantly  our  attention,  and  reason  enough 
there  is  to  deem  it  of  vital  importance.  Eeform  in 
this  point  will  increase  not  only  the  mechanical  and 
artistic  productions  of  the  community,  but  also  its 
elevation  in  morals.  "There  is  a  class  of  young 
people,"  says  a  circular  of  the  bureau  of  education, 
mostly  females,  who,  having  taken  the  first  step  in 
vice,  linger  awhile  before  taking  the  second,  and 
then  are  rapidly  and  utterly  degraded" — a  solemn 
fact.  Beyond  its  moral  import,  it  affects  profound- 
ly the  economic  and  physical  interests  of  society. 
Think  of  the  terrible  risks  and  woes  a  community 


48  MANUAL  TRAINING 

undergoes,  as  well  as  economic  loss,  from  "the ranks 
of  the  uneducated,  or  even  so-called  educated  young 
women  when  by  circumstances  these  are  called  to 
earn  their  own  way  in  the  world,  and  find  their 
hands  no  equipment  and  no  implements  for  the 
emergency. " 


XIV. 

That  Manual  Traiyiing  is  Beneficial  to  Production. 


Manual  training  in  education  surely  will  enhance 
the  sum  and  quality  of  the  manufactured  products 
of  the  community.  More  and  more  this  is  seen. 
I  quote  an  instructive  passage  from  a  "Circular  of 
Information"  of  the  bureau  of  education  at  Wash- 
ington : 

Education  makes  labor  more  skillful  and  more 
productive.  This  proposition  is  based  on  a  wide 
comparison  of  intelligent  and  ignorant  labor,  and  is 
sustained  by  such  a  multitude  of  observations  that 
it  is  no  longer  questioned  by  any  one  familiar  with 
the  facts.  In  1846,  Horace  Mann,  then  secretary 
of  the  board  of  education  of  Massachusetts,  opened 
a  correspondence  with  business  men  to  ascertain  the 
comparative  productive  value  of  educated  and  un- 
educated labor.  The  men  addressed  included  manu- 
facturers of  all  kinds — machinists,  engineers,  rail- 
road contractors,  officers  in  the  army,  etc. — men 
who  had  the  means  of  determining  the  productive- 
ness of  labor  by  observing  hundreds  of  persons 
working  side  by  side,  using  the  same  tools  and 
machinery,  and  working  on  the  same  material,  and 
making  the  same  fabrics.  In  many  instances  the 
productiveness  of  each  operative  could  be  weighed 
by   the  pound  or  measured  by  the  yard.     The  in- 


50  MANUAL  TRAINING 

vestigation  disclosed  an  astonishing  superiority  in 
productive  power  of  the  educated  laborer  as  compared 
with  the  uneducated.  "The  hand,"  wrote  Mr. 
Mann,  "is  found  to  be  another  hand  when  guided 
by  an  intelligent  mind.  Processes  are  performed 
not  only  more  rapidly,  but  better,  when  faculties 
which  have  been  exercised  in  early  life  furnish  their 
assistance.  In  great  establishments  and  among 
large  bodies  of  laborers,  where  men  pass  by  each 
other  ascending  or  descending  in  their  grades  of 
labor  just  as  easily  and  certainly  as  particles  of 
water  of  different  degrees  of  temperature  glide  by 
each  other,  there  it  is  found  to  be  an  almost  invar- 
iable rule  that  the  educated  laborer  rises  to  a  higher 
and  higher  point  in  the  kinds  of  labor  performed, 
and  also  in  the  wages  received,  while  the  ignorant 
sinks  like  dregs  and  is  always  found  at  the  bottom." 

In  1870  the  National  Commissioner  of  Education 
widened  Mr.  Mann's  investigations,  addressing  his 
inquiries  to  business  men  in  all  parts  of  the  country 
and  to  a  few  large  employers  in  Great  Britain.  The 
result  was  a  complete  confirmation  of  Mr.  Mann's 
conclusions. 

The  same  lesson  has  been  taught  and  enforced  by 
the  world's  expositions.  In  1851  the  Queen  of 
England  sent  forth  a  gracious  invitation  to  the 
nations  to  send  to  her  proud  capital  the  best  pro- 
ducts of  human  skill.  The  world  responded  grandly, 
and  the  World's  Fair  at  London  was  the  greatest 
and  richest  collection  of  the  works  of  art  and  arti- 
sanship  on  which  the  sun  had  ever  shone.     The 


IN  EDUCATION  51 

exhibition  was  divided  into  nearly  one  hundred 
departments,  the  jurors  were  appointed,  the  articles 
were  patiently  examined,  and  at  last  the  verdict  was 
given.  Great  Britain  w^as  awarded  the  palm  of 
excell-ence  in  nearly  all  the  grand  departments  of 
the  exhibition.  The  announcement  of  this  result  lit 
up  Birmingham,  Manchester,  Sheffield,  and  other  i^ 
manufacturing  towns  with  bonfires,  and  filled  Eng- 
land with  general  joy.  She  rejoiced  in  the  belief 
that  she  was  mistress  of  the  industrial  world.  She 
saw  her  sails  whitening  every  sea  and  heard  the 
increasing  hum  of  her  factories  and  mills. 

Sixteen  years  passed  over  Europe.  Napoleon  * 
III.,  in  imitation  of  Queen  Victoria's  example,  in- 
vited the  nations  to  send  up  to  his  imperial  capital 
the  choicest  products  of  human  industry.  The 
world  responded  even  more  grandly  than  before. 
The  Paris  Exposition  was  divided,  like  its  predeces- 
sor, into  over  ninety  departments ;  the  jurors  were 
appointed,  the  articles  examined  and  the  verdict 
reached.  Great  Britam  had  excelled  her  competi- 
tors in  but  ten  of  all  the  departments.  The  an- 
nouncement of  the  verdict  produced  consternation 
among  the  representatives  of  British  industry.  They 
met  at  the  Hotel  de  Louvre,  and  the  one  absorbing 
inquiry  was,  "Why  this  defeat."  The  unexpected  ^/■ 
-news  crossed  the  channel,  causing  greater  alarm 
than  the  threatened  invasion  by  Napoleon  I.  This 
defeat  awakened  England  to  the  startling  fact  that 
the  mdustrial  scepter  was  slipping  from  her  hands; 
and,  as  a  result,  she  saw  her  ships  rotting  m  her 


>/ 


52  MANUAL  TEAININQ 

harbors  and  the  hammer  falling  from  the  hand  of 
her  starving  workmen.  The  disaster  arrested  public 
attention,  and  a  searching  and  thorough  investiga- 
tion for  its  cause  was  made  by  a  Parliamentary 
commission.  The  report  made  to  Parliament  in 
1868  contains  the  testimony  and  the  conclusion. 
Education  had  won  the  palm  of  excellence  for  her 
competitors.  The  conclusion  is  forcibly  stated  in 
the  testimony  of  Mr.  Edward  Huth.  "The  work- 
men of  of-jher  countries,"  he  said,  "have  a  far  super- 
ior education  to  ours,  many  of  whom  have  none 
whatever.  Their  productions  show  clearly  that 
there  is  not  a  machine  working  a  machine,  but  that 
brains  sit  at  the  loom,  and  intelligence  stands  at  the 
e23inning  wheel." 

The  discovered  cause  indicated  the  remedy,  and 
the  rej)ort  to  Parliament  was  soon  followed  by  the 
great  education  bill,  which  established  a  general 
system  of  elementary  education  throughout  Great 
Britain.  Technical  schools  have  been  multiplied, 
and  science  has  claimed  a  larger  place  in  the  higher 
schools  and  universities.  Great  Britain  has  appealed 
to  the  schoolmaster  to  win  back  her  pre-eminence 
in  industry. 

The  extraordinary  development  in  the  present 
age  of  the  means  of  communication  and  transporta- 
tion makes  plainer  still  the  need  of  a  wider  spread  of 
mechanical  knowledge  and  power.  The  oper- 
ation of  steam  and  of  the  telegraph,  well  has  it 
been  said,  means  simply  that  competition  has  now 


IN  EDUCATION  53 

become  world-wide,  and  that  the  day  of  local  isola- 
tion of  trades  and  industries  is  passed.  Even  now 
whatever  is  made  well  in  California  affects  similar 
industry  in  St.  Petersburg  or  Melbourne.  So  it  will 
be  more  and  more.  To  meet  these  conditions,  any 
community  that  values  industrial  eminence,  or  even 
wealth  and  power,  must  spread  wider  and  establish 
more  deeply  the  knowledge  of  mechanics. 


XV. 

That  Manual  Training   is   Beneficial   to    Invention. 


Scientific  artisan  training  is  important  to  inven- 
tion. The  most  valuable  inventions  must  come 
from  the  educated  hand-worker.  Why  so  noticeable 
heretofore  that  great  and  important  inventions  have 
sprung  almost  never  from  artisans  in  the  trade, 
whose  processes  they  improved?  Plainly  because 
the  uneducated  workman  operates  like  a  machine, 
performing  certain  habitual  motions  or  functions, 
which,  even  if  exhibiting  peculiar  skill,  are  not  in- 
spired by  knowledge  of  the  theory  of  his  work. 
This  will  be  changed  by  scientific  and  manual  train- ' 
ing  joined  in  one  education. 

Says  a  circular  of  our  bureau:  "Industries  made 
but  comparatively  slow  progress  while  they  were 
carried  on  by  persons  whose  instruction  was  limited 
to  apprenticeship.  Gradually,  and  in  more  recent 
times,  the  idea  has  made  its  way  that  the  progress 
of  an  industry  depends  especially  upon  the  degree 
of  instruction  of  those  who  exercise  it."  A  trained 
mechanic,  now  a  large  dealer  in  machinery,  said  to 
me  that  one  great  benefit  of  the  manual  training 
school  is  to  be  that  the  skillful  mechanic  will  be- 


56  MANUAL  TRAINING 

come  able  to  tell  what  he  knows,  by  which  capacity, 
now  often  entirely  absent,  experience  can  be  com- 
municated and  progress  quickened. 


XYI. 

That  Manual  Training  is  Important  in  Relation  to 
Immigration. 


A  problem  with  which  we  have  to  deal  is  the 
enormous  immigration  which  presents  in  this 
country  one  of  the  most  astonishing  spectacles  in 
history.  An  eminent  scholar  said  to  me  recently 
that  any  community  left  to  itself  to  increase  accord- 
ing to  the  natural  multiplication  of  the  species,  will 
be  found  generally  able  to  solve  its  own  problems 
with  hajDpy  results;  but  when  these  problems  are 
affected  by  immense  hordes  of  foreign  and  unedu- 
cated, unskilled  and  sometimes  half -pauperized  im- 
migrants, the  problem  becomes  not  only  distressing 
but  difficult  and  dangerous.  Meantime,  it  seems 
certain  that  steadiness  of  character,  independence, 
political  power  and  mental  worth  will  go  with  man- 
ual capacity  and  with  genuine  respect  for  hand- 
work. Now,  shall  this  great  advantage  be  surren- 
dered wholly  to  the  foreign  element?  I  heard  a 
preacher  say  that  we  stood  in  no  danger  from  our 
immigrants.  "If,"  he  said,  "a  lion  eat  an  ox,  the 
lion  is  in  no  danger  of  becoming  an  ox,  but  the  ox 
becomes  lion."    True;  but  we  cannot  pulverize  and 


58  MANUAL  TRAINING 

masticate  our  immigrants  to  that  degree,  or,  too, 
with  that  rapidity.  I  wish  not  to  keep  foreign  men 
underlings  or  leave  them  undeveloped ;  but  I  plead 
for  the  equal  development,  side  by  side  with  them, 
of  American  stock,  by  those  qualities  and  kinds  of 
education  which  confer  independence  of  circum- 
^  stances  and  a  skillful  control  over  matter.  How 
can  this  be  done  but  by  the  training  of  the  hand  as 
a  part  of  education?  And  how  can  this  be  done  but 
by  manual  training  schools?  For  the  disagreeable- 
ness  of  practical  work  in  a  manufacturing  shop  by 
reason  of  the  inroads  of  our  untutored  foreign  resi- 
dents, and  the  consequent,  albeit  temporary,  vulgari- 
zation of  mechanical  surroundings,  has  attracted  fore- 
boding attention.  A  very  eminent  physician  said  to 
me  lately  that  he  thought  it  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tressing problems  of  the  country,  and  saw  no  light 
in  it  and  no  way  out  of  it.  A  document  of  oui 
bureau  of  education  remarks  on  this  fact:  "Immi- 
gration has  filled  nearly  eveiy  department  of  com- 
mon labor  with  workmen  long  subject  to  caste  ideas 
and  resulting  social  customs.  The  unpleasant 
conditions  thus  resulting  have  crowded  out  intelli- 
gent American  labor. "  Here  it  is  that  the  institution 
which  is  both  a  shop  and  a  school  comes  to  supply 
the  pressing  need ;  for  here  mind-training  and  hand- 


IN  EDUCATION 


m 


training  go  on  together,    making    elevating    and 
beautiful  influences. 


XVII. 

That  Manual  Training  affects  beneficially/  the  prob- 
lem of  Apprenticeship. 


A  point  of  economic  value  which  is  of  incal- 
culable importance,  is  the  power  of  the  manual  '^ 
training  school  to  cope  with  the  present  problem  of 
trades'  exclusiveness  as  to  apprentices,  and  indeed 
with  the  general  decay  of  the  apprenticeship  system 
from  whatever  causes.  This  decline  would  be 
serious  enongh  in  itself  in  any  community  and  at 
any  time ;  but  it  is  rendered  more  serious  here  by 
the  problems  connected  with  our  immigration,  by 
the  present  facilities  of  communication  the  world 
over,  and  by  the  immense  labor  necessary  to  turn 
to  account  our  advantages  of  soil,  climate  and 
mineral  wealth.  This  especial  need  for  well  ordered 
and  skillful  mechanical  labor,  says  a  circular  of  the 
bureau  of  education,  "has  been  attended  by  a 
steady  decline  of  the  apprenticeship  system  which 
heretofore  formed  our  trained  artisans.  It  has  be- 
come more  and  more  evident  that  if  this  decline  of 
apprentices  is  not  made  good  by  effective  training,  ^ 
the  American  manufacturer  will  be  at  the  mercy  of 
the  trained  laborer  of  Europe."    But,  indeed,  the 


62  MANUAL  TRAINING 

old  world  oommunities  are  feeling  the  same  strain. 
Our  bureau  refers  to  a  French  official  report  as  fol- 
lows : 

In  consequence  of  the  virtual  abolition  of  appren- 
ticeship in  most  trades,  and  owing  to  the  specializa- 
tion and  subdivision  of  manufactures  resulting 
from  the  introduction  of  machinery,  the  number  of 
skillful  and  intelligent  workmen  in  all  branches  of 
industry  and  art  manufacture  has  decreased,  and  the 
standard  of  technical  knowledge  has  been  lowered. 
This,  the  French  author  considers,  has  been  spe- 
cially prejudicial  to  French  manufactures,  the  dis- 
tinguishing merit  of  which  he  believes  to  have 
consisted  in  originality  of  design.  The  vulgariza- 
tion of  manufactures  has,  in  his  opinion,  given  great 
facilities  for  piracy,  especially  on  the  part  of 
foreigners.  He  believes  that  a  remedy  for  these 
evils  will  be  found  in  the  establishment  of  appren- 
ticeship scliools,  the  object  of  which  should  be 
mainly  not  the  creation  of  foremen,  but  the  theo- 
retical and  practical  education  of  workmen  proper. 
In  determining  what  should  be  the  trades  taught  in 
schools  founded  and  carried  on  at  the  cost  of  the 
municipality,  he  would  confine  them  to  what  he  calls 
"parent  industries" — that  is  to  say,  those  in  which 
the  processes  to  be  taught  are  applicable  to  a  large 
number  of  allied  trades. 

Here  the  real  relief  is  indicated.     No  community 

need  be  at  the  mercy  of  mechanics  who  will  not 

teach  their  art,  for  it  can  have  a  school  which  will 


in  EDUCATION  63 

teach  it  better.  Speaking  of  the  founding  of  a 
school  of  mechanical  arts  in  the  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology in  Boston,  Edward  Atkinson  says : 

At  the  date  of  the  Centennial  Exhibition  no  such 
school  existed;  and  our  late  president,  Mr.  John  D. 
Runkle,  there  found  in  the  Russian  department  ex- 
amples of  work  done,  and  a  statement  of  the  method  u^ 
adopted  in  Russia,  which  seemed  to  meet  a  need  that 
we  had  long  felt.  With  much  effort  he  succeeded 
in  obtaining  the  requisite  means,  to  which  the  Mas- 
sachusetts Charitable  Mechanic  Association  contri- 
buted a  considerable  sum  in  consideration  of  two 
scholarships,  and  established  the  school  which  I 
have  attempted  to  describe  to  you.  From  the  time 
he  first  described  it  to  me,  and  before  I  had  myself 
examined  the  Russian  work  in  Philadelphia,  I  have 
never  doubted  for  a  moment  that  President  Runkle 
had  brought  from  the  Centennial  one  of  its  most  val- 
uable lessons,  and  that  he  had  had  the  sagacity  to 
perceive  that  in  this  plan  there  was  a  substitute  for 
the  old  method  of  apprenticeship  more  effective  and  '^ 
better  than  that  could  ever  have  been. 

Says  another  writer: 

The  apprentice  in  a  shop  is  a  hewer  of  wood  and 
a  drawer  of  water,  the  last  and  least  important  indi- 
vidual in  the  shop.  In  the  manual  training  school 
on  the  contrary,  the  boy  is  the  most  important  in-^>' 
dividual.  He  is  the  object  for  which  the  school  ex- 
ists. He  is  the  material  that  is  to  be  finished. 
Instead  of  being  left  to  himself  to  pick  up  what 


64  MANUAL  TRAINING 

he  can,  competent  and  intelligent  instructors  de- 
vote themselves  to  his  training.  As  an  appren- 
tice, the  boy  exists  for  the  benefit  of  the  shop. 
As  a  scholar  in  a  manual  training  school,  the  shop 
exists  for  the  benefit  of  the  boy. 


XVIII. 

Facts  as  to  the  need  of  Manual  Training, 

As  to  the  present  condition  of  manual  training  in 
education,  it  is  plain  that  we  have  it  not;  and  some 
general  facts,  beside  the  foregoing  statements,  press 
home  sadly,  not  to  say  shamefully,  our  need  of  it. 
The  following  anecdote  from  a  scientific  and  me- 
chanical journal  may  illustrate,  and  perhaps  hardly 
over-state,  the  present  condition : 

A  young  man  stepped  into  the  office  of  the  In- 
dianapolis Rolling  Mill  not  long  since  and  asked  for 
work.  "What  can  you  do?"  asked  the  president. 
"I  don't  know,"  said  the  young  man.  "Have  you 
a  trade?"  "No  Sir."  "Where  did  you  come  from?" 
"From  Pennsylvania."  "Are  you  a  German?"  "No 
sir;  I  am  an  American."  "If  you  were  a  German, 
or  an  Irishman,  or  a  Frenchman,  I  could  set  you 
to  work,  because  you  would  know  how  to  do  some- 
thing, but  Americans  don't  know  anything  about 
practical  business." 

The  crowds  of  people  who  seek  work  willing  to  do 
anything,  jostling  in  a  scramble  to  pick  up  any  oc- 
cupation, and  the  small  number  who  have  a  digni- 
fied skill  in  general  mechanics  or  in  some  special 
handicraft — these  are  the  impressive,  often  distres- 
sing, facts  which  prove  the  incapacity  of  our  present 


66  MANUAL  TBAININO 

education  to  cope  with  the  needs  of  the  time.  An 
editor  advertised  for  a  clerk  and  instantly  had 
500  applications ;  a  mechanic  advertised  for  a  skilled 
artisan,  and  had  only  five  or  six  answers,  and  most 
of  those  too  old.  This  state  of  things  influences 
our  public  service  disastrously,  producing  not  only 
a  mean  and  demoralizing  scramble  for  office,  but 
inefficiency  and  unfaithfulness  in  duty.  Said  a  Col- 
lector of  the  Port  of  New  York :  "  You  can  possibly 
appreciate  my  situation  when  you  hear  that  I  have 
received  applications  for  the  position  of  weigher 
from  840  persons;  and  yet  there  are  only  fifteen 
weighers  to  be  ax3pointed."  Sometimes — so  great 
is  popular  thoughtlessness  on  this  point — this  evil 
is  ascribed  to  education  itself.  It  is  said  we  have 
over-educated  the  youth  of  the  country  so  that  the 
.boy  has  become  too  fine  for  his  father's  trade,  and 
^manual  work  is  despised.  This  is  not  over-education, 
but  bad  education.  The  foolish,  unrepublican  and 
inhumane  shows  of  wealth,  the  selfishness  of  the 
cultivated  classes,  the  influence  of  slavery  in  our 
history,  which  perhaps  will  not  be  out-grown  for 
half  a  century  yet;  immigration,  the  disturbing  in- 
fluences of  the  rapid  transportation  by  railroads, 
which  have  not  yet  slipped  into  their  normal  and 
necessary  relations  to  the  community;  the  magical 


IN  EDUCATION  67 

growth  of  great  cities,  especially  in  the  west; 
idleness,  laziness,  intemperance,  the  evil  effects  of 
agitators  either  vicious  or  ignorant  that  affect  idle 
crowds,  and  the  general  atmosphere  of  alteration, 
revolution  and  reconstruction  filling  the  whole  earth 
at  present  with  an  uncertain  groping,  or  often  wild 
clutching,  after  a  new  condition,  which  prove  pecu- 
liarly misleading  to  the  indolent, — all  these  facts 
sufficiently  account  for  our  uncomfortable  situation 
in  respect  to  skilled  artisanship,  without  resorting 
to  the  foolish  plea  that  we  have  over-educated  our 
young  blood.  The  converse  is  true,  if  we  take  a 
high  view  of  education.  We  have  under-educated 
them  by  failing  to  add  that  manual  training  which 
would  confer  on  the  community  the  economic  ad- 
vantage of  high  respect  for  hand-work,  and  on  the 
pupil  the  dignity  of  skill  and  of  independence.  Con- 
sequently, we  have  made  misshapen  and  distorted 
men — too  much  grown  in  one  part,  too  little  in  an- 
other, mental  hunchbacks  and  clubfeet;  and  no 
more  than  an  army  of  deformed  bodies  could  carry 
a  nation  through  a  war,  can  communities  of  minds 
misshapen  by  one-sided  pressure,  bring  a  country 
to  the  level  of  the  industrial  requirements  of  peace. 


XIX. 

Beginnings* — Present  Schools, 


Regarding  attempts  at  manual  training  in  educa- 
tion, but  slight  information  can  be  given,  because 
the  subject  is  so  new,  the  efforts  so  few,  and  the 
accessible  reports  of  them  necessarily  meager.  Two 
kinds  of  mechanical  schools  must  be  distinguished. 
One  is  a  school  devoted  to  preparation  for  a  special 
trade;  but  this  I  pass  by  without  notice,  for  though 
many  such  exist,  they  do  not  come  properly  within 
the  scope  of  manual  training  as  an  instruction  of 
the  hand  in  due  course  of  general  education.  The 
other  kind  is  a  school  of  manual  operations  of  many 
different  sorts,  preferring  no  one  trade  to  another, 
but  seeking  to  develop  skill  of  hand  and  knowledge 
of  materials,  and  to  add  to  this  a  scientific  and 
literary  education.  These  are  the  true  manual  train- 
ing schools.  Even  in  the  old  civilization  of  Europe 
comparatively  little  has  been  attempted  and  little 
progress  made  as  yet  in  the  creation  of  such  schools. 
France  has  some  such  in  Paris, Eheims,Lyons, Rouen 
and  several  other  cities ;  and  there  are  two  kinds — 
a  primary  or  elementary  sort,  giving  quite  general 
instruction,  and  a  peculiar  system  of  '^apprentice- 


70  MANUAL  TRAINING 

ship  schools,"  which,  while  supplying  technical, 
scientific  and  literary  instruction,  aim  "to  form 
workmen  as  distinguished  from  foremen."  Some 
such  schools  shape  their  manual  training  wholly 
for  particular  trades;  others  give  a  general  training 
before  the  trade  is  chosen,  and  after  that  a  special 
training  for  the  trade.  These  apprenticeship  schools 
are  few  in  number,  but  there  are  many  of  the  ele- 
mentary kind.  A  circular  of  our  bureau  of  educa- 
tion, quoting  from  an  English  report  of  1882,  says: 
"There  were  when  we  visited  Paris  twenty-three 
primary  schools  to  which  a  workshop  had  been  at- 
tached. Ten  others  were  on  the  point  of  being 
opened,  and  preparations  were  being  made  for  at- 
taching workshops  to  twelve  others."  In  another 
circular  of  1884,  our  bureau  says:  "The  French 
are  now  preparing  for  a  great  extent  of  hand-work 
\  in  the  schools  of  Paris,  both  for  boys  and  girls,  but 
it  will  take  time  to  realize  their  ideas."  From  the 
same  document  we  may  learn  of  hand-work  schools 
in  Germany,  Holland,  Denmark,  Sweden  and  Fin- 
land. Sweden  has  shown  much  vitality  on  this 
subject.  The  report  says  it  has  been  found  difficult 
to  "keep  up  with  the  demand  for  teachers  in  the 
new  system,  and  to  provide  for  the  rapidly  spread- 
ing introduction  of  the  hand-work  element  in  the 


IN  EDUCATION  71 

common  schools.  Teachers'  institutes  are  held  for 
six  weeks  in  the  siimmer  to  give  the  ordinary  teach- 
ers a  chance  to  learn  the  wood-work  art,  that  they 
may  give  instruction  in  hand- work  in  addition  to 
their  other  teaching."  In  England  "hand- work  in 
schools  and  hand-work  schools  seem  to  have  made 
little  progress,"  but  "there  has  been  much  agita- 
tion on  the  subject  and  some  movement  has  begun." 
The  latest  facts  which  I  have  been  able  to  glean 
are  in  an  excellent  circular  of  information  of  our 
bureau  of  education,  under  date  of  Sept.  6th,  1885, 
being  "a  review  of  the  reports  of  the  British  Royal 
Commissioners  on  Technical  Instruction."  The 
circular  says:  * 'It  will  be  found  that  in  every  one 
of  the  old  polytechnics  [that  is,  scientific  polytech- 
nic schools]  the  notion  prevails  that  if  the  brain  be 
thoroughly  trained,  the  hands  will  take  care  of 
themselves.  This  is  the  old  view  of  higher  tech- 
nology." As  a  consequence  there  is  an  excess  of 
polytechnic  graduates  over  the  demand.  One  mana- 
ger of  large  engineering  works  put  in  his  window 
the  notice,  "No  polytechnic  student  need  apply." 
The  Austrian  minister  of  instruction,  says  the  cir- 
cular, "told  the  writer  that  the  most  serious  pro- 
blem in  education  in  that  country  is  to  reduce  the 
number  of  theoretical   engineers  who,  after  their 


72  MANUAL  TMAININO 

long  course  of  study,  found  themselves  not  wanted, 
and  to  increase  the  number  of  men  in  whose  train- 
ing theory  and  practice  had  been  so  combined  that 
they  could  meet  the  great  demand  for  those  who  can 
put  theory  and  practice  together."  This  on  the  man- 
ual side  of  the  value  of  joint  education.  On  the 
other,  or  intellectual  side,  is  the  following  from  the 
English  report:  **Your  commissioners  cannot  re- 
peat too  often  that  they  have  been  impressed  with 
the  general  intelligence  and  technical  knowledge  of 
the  masters  and  managers  of  industrial  establish- 
ments on  the  continent.  They  have  found  that  these 
persons  as  a  rule  possess  a  sound  knowledge  of  the 
sciences  upon  which  their  indiistry  depends.  They 
are  familiar  with  every  new  scientific  discovery  of 
importance  and  appreciate  its  applicability  to  their 
special  industry.  They  adopt  not  only  the  inven- 
tions and  improvements  made  in  their  own  country, 
but  also  those  of  the  world  at  large,  thanks  to  their 
knowledge  of  foreign  languages  and  of  the  condi- 
tions of  manufacture  prevalent  elsewhere." 

Kussia  has  the  honor  of  leading  the  world  in 
manual  training  as  a  part  of  education.  The  circu  - 
lar  says : 

*'The  neio  idea  which  appears  here  and  there 
among  the  technical  schools  is  to  incorporate  shop- 


IN  EDUCATION  73 

work  with  the  essential  parts  of  the  old  courses. 
This  has  been  done  in  three  ways:  (1)  by  mixing 
shopwork  with  the  duties  of  each  week,  as  at  Mos- 
cow; (2)  by  consolidating  the  shopwork  in  a  year 
following  the  school  course,  as  at  St.  Petersburg; 
(3)  by  requiring  a  certain  amount  of  shopwork  as  a 
condition  of  admission  to  the  schoolwork,  as  at  the 
Royal  Foreman  School  of  Chemnitz.  The  Russians 
alone  among  European  nations  are  entitled  to  the 
credit  of  attempting  to  reform  the  technical  training 
of  engineers  and  mechanics  by  mixing  workshop 
instruction  with  other  elements  of  the  polytechnic 
course.  Their  success  is  remarkable.  *  *  *  * 
Russia  is  the  lee  shore  upon  which  the  choicest 
educational  pebbles  may  be  gathered.  In  studying 
Russia  one  sees  all  European  technological  educa- 
tion epitomized,  and  the  whole  plan  of  the  new  edu- 
cation in  Russia  may  be  seen  in  the  two  schools  of 
technology  at  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow.  In  each 
school  is  an  ample,  well  equipped  manufacturing 
machine  shop  where  the  students  see  good  work  done 
by  skilled  mechanics  and  are  taught  to  do  such  them- 
selves ;  the  course  of  study  is  otherwise  substantial- 
ly the  same  as  in  the  German  polytechnics.  In 
each  shop  a  definite  number  of  hours  of  work  are 
required  of  every  student,  with  this  difference  in  the 
plan,  that  at  Moscow  the  shopwork  is  mixed  with 
the  duties  of  every  week  of  the  six-year  course;  at 
St.  Petersburg  it  is  consolidated  into  a  fifth  year, 
after  all  the  school  work  of  the  four-year  course 
has  been  finished.  At  Moscow  no  week  passes  with- 


74  MANUAL  TBAININO 

out  shopwork ;  at  St.  Petersburg  no  shop  work  is 
done  till  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  year,  which  year 
is  wholly  devoted  to  drawing  and  shopwork.  The 
two  schools  differ  also  in  this,  that  at  St.  Petersburg 
all  the  students  are  externs,  at  Moscow  about  one- 
third  are  boarders.  *  *  -^  *  To  give  zest  to 
the  rather  tedious  work  of  the  first  three  years  the 
boys  hear  lectures  on  practical  topics,  such  as  the 
best  cutting  angle  of  files,  the  set  of  saw  teeth, 
etc.,  which  may  not  make  them  any  better  mechan- 
ics, yet  tends  to  improve  their  general  intelli- 
gence." The  Eoyal  Foremen's  school  at  Chemnitz 
requires  shopwork  as  a  "preliminary  condition  of 
admission."  It  is  designed  to  give  mechinists,  dy- 
ers, tanners,  millers,  and  other  machanics,  a  theor- 
etical and  scientific  knowledge  of  their  arts,  and 
"the  student  must  have  worked  at  least  two  years 
at  his  calling  before  entering." 

France  continues  her  attention  to  the  subject, 
and  has  many  schools  of  two  different  classes, 
namely,  the  apprenticeship  school  in  which  particu- 
lar trades  are  taught,  and  common  schools,  in  which 
manual  training  in  general  is  carried  on  with  liter- 
ary and  scientific  education.  These  are  often  under 
very  rigorous  discipline,  the  students  sometimes 
wearing  uniform,  and  being  very  closely  held  to 
work.  The  school  day  is  sometimes  twelve  and 
three  quarters  hours  long,  divided  about  equally  be- 
tween the  school  room  and  the  shop.  Some  of  these 


IF  EDUCATION  75 

schools  take  children  even  as  young  as  six  years  old, 
and  give  them  three  hours  of  instruction  each  week 
in  handicraft.  After  ten  years  of  age  they  work 
eighteen  hours  a  week  in  the  shop.  The  Eoyal  com- 
missioners say  that  "in  affording  an  education  in 
which  theory  is  not  carried  too  far  and  is  duly 
combined  with  laboratory  practice,  and  in  some 
cases  with  workshop  instruction,  and  in  which, 
moreover,  the  scientific  teaching  is  made  to  bear 
upon  the  principal  manufacturers  of  the  districts, 
these  higher  technical  schools  (a  grade  below  the 
German  polytechnics  and  the  Ecole  Centrale  of  Paris) 
provide  the  kind  of  education  that  is  best  adapted  to 
the  various  grades  of  managers  of  works." 

As  to  English  progress  in  this  subject,  the  royal 
report,  after  expressing  the  view  on  the  intellectual 
side,  "that  many  workmen  are  disposed  to  attach  too 
little  value  to  the  importance  of  acquiring  a  know- 
ledge of  the  principles  of  science  because  they  do 
not  see  their  application,"  says  on  the  practical  or 
manual  side,  "Your  commissioners  have  had  the 
opportunity  of  inspecting  the  manual  work  of  the 
pupils,  both  at  the  Manchester  board  schools  and  at 
the  central  school  in  Sheffield,  and  they  are  satis- 
fied that  such  work  is  very  beneficial  as  a  part  of 
the  preliminary  education   of  boys  in  this  country 


xi 


76  MANUAL  TRAINING 

who  are  to  be  subsequently  engaged  in  industrial 
pursuits,  even  though  it  should  not,  as  however  it 
probably  will  do,  actually  shorten  the  period  of 
their  apprenticeship. " 

As  to  Ireland,  the  commissioners  say:  "We  need 
scarcely  point  out  that,  if  it  be  deemed  desirable  to 
introduce  manual  instruction  in  the  use  of  tools  in 
elementary  schools  at  all,  this  would  apply  in  an 
eminent  degree  to  the  primary  schools  of  Ireland. 
It  was  stated  in  evidence  before  us,  that  in  some 
parts  of  Ireland  ordinary  handicrafts,  like  those  of 
the  mason,  have  become  absolutely  extinct. 
Whether  the  children  remain  in  their  own  immed- 
iate localities  or  migrate  to  other  parts  of  the 
country,  or  emigrate  to  our  colonies  or  to  foreign 
countries,  such  instruction  leading  up  to  their 
apprenticeship  as  skilled  laborers,  instead  of  their 
fulfilling,  as  is  now  too  much  the  case,  the  part  of 
mere  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water,  would 
be  of  the  greatest  value  to  them.  We  are  happy  to 
find  that  the  authorities  of  the  national  board  of 
education  in  Ireland  appreciate  the  impoi*tance  of 
introducing  instruction  in  manual  work  into  their 
schools." 

How  meager  are  these  facts  for  a  review  of  the 
condition  of  such  a  subject  in  the  world;  yet  they 


IN  EDUCATION  77 

include  all  of  much  importance  -whicli  our  bureau  of 
education  has  collected  from  foreign  reports.  As 
regards  our  own  country,  information  at  present  is 
equally  meager.  In  the  report  of  our  commissioner 
of  education  for  1882-'83,  filling  over  1,000  pages, 
but  three  or  four  are  devoted  to  "progress  of  instruc- 
tion in  practical  mechanics,"  and  these  pages  men- 
tion only  a  course  of  shop  practice  in  the  Colorado 
Agricultural  college,  the  Illinois  Industrial  univer- 
sity, Purdue  university  in  Indiana,  the  College  of 
Mechanical  Arts  at  Cornell  university,  the  Agricul- 
tural and  Mechanical  college  of  Texas,  the  Institute 
of  Technology  at  Boston,  and  the  Manual  Training 
school  of  St.  Louis.  A  circular  of  the  bureau  adds 
a  brief  history  of  experiments  in  Peru,  111.,  Moline, 
III.,  New  Haven,  Conn.,  the  school  in  Chicago,  two 
experiments  in  Boston,  a  genuine  apprenticeship 
school  in  New  York  city  and  a  school  in  Baltimore. 
The  latter  has  a  special  significance,  for  the  circular 
remarks:  "Baltimore  is  the  first  municipality  to 
establish  a  manual  training  school  as  an  integral 
part  of  the  public  school  system." 

The  report  of  our  commissioner  for  1883-'84,  just 
at  hand  (March,  1886),  of  over  1,200  pages,  has  but 
three  pages  devoted  to  manual  training.  These 
mention   a  school  in  Brookline,  Mass.,  and  add: 


78  MANUAL  TRAINING 

"So  far  as  reported  to  this  office,  the  cities  in  which 
provision  for  manual  training  has  been  made  in 
connection  with  the  public  schools,  or  under  the 
auspices  of  the  public  school  boards  are  Boston, 
New  Haven,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  Cleveland, 
Toledo,  Chicago,  Moline  and  Peru."  I  know  not 
why  some  of  these  cities  should  be  credited  thus. 
The  subject  has  been  broached  in  the  school  board 
of  Chicago,  but  without  action  as  yet.  There  is  a 
school  at  Cleveland,  but  not  a  public  school;  it  has 
the  peculiarity  of  holding  its  sessions  in  the  after- 
noons from  2:30  to  5:30  o'clock,  and  on  Saturday 
mornings  from  9  to  12  o'clock,  so  "that  it  may  sup- 
plement," says  its  circular,  "the  present  method  of 
education,"  and  "so  arrange  the  exercises  that  the 
pupils  of  many  of  the  existing  schools  may  avail 
themselves  of  the  instruction  given  in  its  classes." 
To  the  cities  which  have  taken  a  forward  step  in 
providing  for  manual  training  in  the  public  schools 
must  be  added  Omaha. 

A  course  in  mechanic  arts  has  just  been  opened  in 
the  State  Agricultural  school  of  Michigan,  at  Lan- 
sing. There  is  a  school  of  mechanics,  long  estab- 
lished, at  Worcester,  Mass.  Besides  these  I  have 
met  a  reference,  how  authoritative  I  cannot  say,  to 
manual  instruction  at  Girard  college,  in  Philadel- 


IN  EDUCATION  79 

phia.  A  meager  enumeration,  not  complete,  no 
doubt,  but,  even  if  much  multiplied,  still  a  meager 
collection  of  facts  on  such  a  subject  as  the  training 
of  the  hand  viewed  as  a  department  of  education. 
I  have  been  able  to  visit  no  school  but  the  one  in 
Chicago.  Li  that,  there  are  six  hours  of  school 
work  daily  except  Saturday  and  Sunday.  Of  the  six 
hours,  two  are  give  to  shop-work,  one  to  drawing, 
three  to  literary,  mathematical  and  scientific  studies, 
for  three  years.  The  mechanical  instruction  for 
the  first  year  is  in  wood-working,  the  next  year  in- 
cludes two  months  in  foundry-work,  and  eight 
months  in  blacksmithing;  in  the  third  year,  which 
completes  the  course,  the  mechanical  work  is  in  the 
machine  shop. 

[Note.— I  learn  from  Prof.  C.  M.  Woodward,  Director  of  the 
Manual  Training  School  at  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  that  in  September,  1885, 
the  Technical  School  at  Manchester,  England,  was  changed  to  a 
school  of  Manual  Training,  exactly  on  the  plan  of  the  St.  Louis 
School,  under  guidance  of  two  addresses  delivered  there  by  him 
in  the  previous  spring :  also  that  the  St.  Louis  plan  has  been  fol- 
lowed directly  in  the  school  at  Baltimore  C public),  and  in  that  at 
Chicago  (private),  and  partially  in  public  schools  at  Boston,  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  Toledo,  Eau  Claire.  Omaha,  and  in  private 
schools  at  Cleveland  and  Denver  ] 


XX. 

Manual  Training  in  Public  Schools, 


Although  some  cities  have  entered  actually  on  the 
experiment,  still  among  educators  it  is  an  important 
question  whether  manual  training  should  be  intro 
duced  into  our  public  schools.  A  discussion  of  this 
point  will  be  found  in  a  circular  of  our  bureau  of 
education,  of  1881,  entitled  "  The  Eelation  of  Educa- 
tion to  Industrial  and  Technical  Training  in  Ameri- 
can Schools."  The  conclusions  are  adverse  to 
industrial  departments  in  the  public  school  system. 
Another  discussion,  with  similar  conclusions,  is  to 
be  found  in  a  circular  of  the  bureau,  dated  January, 
1885.  On  the  other  hand,  an  English  commission, 
after  reviewing  and  citing  French  laws  on  the  sub- 
ject, thus  sums  up 

It  is  clearly  the  aim  of  the  government  and  of  the 
great  cities  that  this  superior  instruction  shall  be 
placed  as  fully  as  possible  within  the  reach  of  the 
workingmen.  The  instruction  in  the  use  of  tools 
during  the  elementary  school  age,  besides  being  of 
service  to  every  child,  whether  destined  to  become  a 
mechanic  or  not,  will  tend,  in  the  former  case,  to 
facilitate  the  learning  of  a  trade,  though  it  may  not 
actually  shorten  the  necessary  period  of  apprentice- 


82  MANUAL  TRAINING 

ship.  We  should  be  glad  to  see  this  kind  of  manual 
instruction  introduced  into  some  of  our  own  elemen- 
tary schools.  The  consideration  of  the  expediency 
of  a  grant  from  the  education  department  for  instruc- 
tion of  this  kind  may  be  well  deferred  for  the 
present. 

The  subject  was  discussed  at  the  meeting  of  the 
National  Educational  Association,  at  Madison, 
Wis.,  in  July,  1884.  The  need  of  special  schools  of 
mechanic  arts  "was  freely  admitted;"  but  as  to 
whether  manual  training  should  become  a  part  of 
the  public  school  system,  views  differed  widely,  but, 
says  the  report  of  the  commissioner,  with  "a  general 
agreement"  against  it.  Prof.  Woodward,  director 
of  the  manual  training  school  at  St.  Louis,  said, 
"My  advice  is,  go  slowly.  Do  not  mistake  the 
shadow  for  the  substance.  Treat  manual  training 
with  dignity  and  respect." 

The  following  is  a  decided  opinion  from  a  special 
point  of  view ;  I  take  it  from  an  article  on  the  labor 
question: 

Industrial  education  in  manual  training  schools 
must  be  introduced  into  our  system  of  public  schools. 
At  present  our  young  people  have  no  chance  to  learn 
a  trade  in  a  factory.  They  are  employed  at  part 
work,  so  that  it  takes  a  team  of  seven  men  to  make 
a  boot  and  several  hundred  men  to  make  a  watch. 
The  principles  of  mechanical  employments  are  few, 


IN  EDUQATION  83 

and  could  be  taught, together  with  other  intellectual 
beaching,  in  the  common  schools.  With  a  knowledge 
of  these  principles  individuals  could  shift  from  ono 
trade  to  another  without  being  compelled  to  remain 
idle  on  account  of  their  inability  to  work  outside  o 
their  single  trade. 

Such  divergent  opinion,  as  well  as  the  great  im- 
portance of  the  subject  and  the  paramount  interest 
of  all  that  touches  education,  show  that  the  relation 
of  the  state  to  this  subject — the  question  of  manual 
training  in  our  public  schools — needs  wide  and  care- 
ful discussion,  particularly  by  experienced,  thought- 
ful and  learned  educators.  I  will  not  offer  a  confident 
opinion;  yet  it  is  my  conclusion  that  manual  train- 
ing ought  to  be  incorporated  radically  with  public 
education,  and  go  hand  in  hand  with  mental  train- 
ing from  the  primary  grades  up  to  our  high  schools, 
or  even  to  our  university  doors. 


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